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MOTTO: 

"More for Schools, and Less for War." 




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-Pagan vs. Christian 


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Civilizations 


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FREE UNIVERSAL INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 


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THE PRICE OF NATIONAL PERMANENCE 




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■•Progress Has iVo End." 




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■•.All True Piogres.< is Towards Democracy." 


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By S. H. Comings 

FAIRBOPE, ALA. 


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Edited find Revised by Lydia J. Newcoinb-Comings 
-Introduction by Hon. C. C. Bonney 


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PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR 


Price 25 Cents 


CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY 
56 Fifth Avenue,. Chicago 



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Motto: 
'More fob Schools, and Less for War. 



PAGAN VS. CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATIONS 



NATIONAL LIFE AND PERMANENCE DEPENDENT ON 
REFORM IN EDUCATION 



A PLEA FOR 



FREE UNIVERSAL INDUSTRIAL TRAINING ON A SELF- 
SUPPORTING BASIS 



By S. H. Comings 

FAIRHOPE, ALA. 

Edited and Revised by Lydia J. Newcomb-Comings 
Introduction by Hon. C. C. Bonney 



PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR 



CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY 
56 Fifth Avenue, Chicago 



By TrftB«f«r 

AUG 28 1917 



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/ O A 



JOHN P. HiaaiNs^^Sa^l^j iss-iae olark (T. 

PRINTER, BINDER^^aS^S-' CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 



DEDICATED 

To all who would see the SUPREME AMBITION of our civiliza- 
tion TURNED from the effort to develop THINGS, to the develop- 
ment of the highest possible average type of MANHOOD and 
WOMANHOOD, and to all who would see LABOR spiritualized, 
and man's CREATIVE AT^BISUiS'i:- changed from the ideal of 
DEGRADATION, to that 'of COMMIirNlON with each other, and 
with the INFINITE. 



FOR THE CUTS IN THIS VOLUME WE 
ARE INDEBTED TO THE COURTESY OF 
THE NATIONAL CASH REGISTER CO., 
WHOSE PRESIDENT, J. H. PATTERSON, 
IS AN ABLE, ENTHUSIASTIC PIONEER 
IN INDUSTRIAL TRAINING. 



CONTENTS 



Frontispiece — 

Ideal Plot for Summer Garden School 

Introduction — 

By Hon. Chas. C. Bonney 9 

Philosophy — 

Accelerated Evolutionary Progress 11 

Foreword — 

Need of Radical Reform — Spencer's Arraignment — To Pre- 
pare for a Higher Social Order 13 

PART I. 

Pagan vs. Christian Civilizations — 

National Growth or Decay Dependent on Educational Meth- 
ods — The Old Pagans — Christ's Social Order — Renewal of 

Pagan Ideals 19 

Paganism Still Dominant — 

Crosby's Philosophy — Military Vanity — Disbanding Army and 

Navy 23 

Froebel's Ideals and Philosophy — 

Man a Creator — Hughes' Analysis — Varying Types of Play — 

Froebel vs. Pestalozzi — A Seer of Collectivism 24 

Froebel^s Plans for Small Schools — 

Handicraft Pract'-'s — Nature Studies-^Study of Mechanics Not 

a Waste of Time 28 

Materials for Mechanical Study — 

Evolution of the School Seat 31 

Methods With Feeble Minded — 

Learning From Touch — Stupid Colored Boy — Morals Im- 
proved by Mechanics 31 

The Unfortunate Races — 

The Law of Imitation — St. Paul's Theological Seminary . . 34 
Teachers' Responsibility — 

Violating Froebel's Philosophy — Conservatives of Conservatism 35 
Examples and Precedents — 
Summer Garden Schools (Illustrated) — 

Village Boy "Toughs" — Sabbath Lessons — Science Teaching — 

Increased Price of Lots 2,1 



6 CONTENTS. 

SeLF-GoVERNMENT — PAGE. 

Holland's Theory— Forward Movement 40 

George Juniour Republic — . _ 

"Nothing Without Labor" — Truant Schools — A Teacher's Per- 
sonal Example 40 

Primary Industrial Schools — 

Striking Effect of Industrial Lessons ........ 41 

City, Suburban and Concentrated Country Schools — 

Taking City Children to Suburbs — Slum Conditions . . . 42 

Agricultural Training — 

Prof. Hayes' Plans — Prof. Harvey's Report — Agricultural 
Schools in Europe — County Schools in Different States — 
Bellamy's Indictment, Lack of Science and System — The Old 
Feudalism — President Patterson's Ideal — Fifty Years of Agita- 
tion for the Common School — Effects of Agricultural Study — 
No Taint of a Labor Caste in Scientific Agriculture ... 43 

Elevation of Races — 

Purely Literary Schools a Failure — Hampton and Tuskegee — 
Aspiration and Ambition a Hopeful Indication .... 47 
Drifting Into Tv\^o Classes — 

Working to Merit Recognition vs. Demanding It — A Colored 
State or Republic — Prejudice Against Northern Supported 

Schools — Colored Preachers 50 

Teaching by Example — 

Teachers Should Exemplify Pride in Skilled Labor .... 51 
Prevention of Crime — 

Enormous Cost of Crime — Six Hundred Millions — In the North, 

Slums; in the South, Illiteracy 52 

The Slow and Unprecocious — 

Many Geniuses Lost to the World — A Higher Average of 

Citizenship 53 

Elevating Labor vs. Degrading Drudgery — 

"To Work or, to Be Worked" — William Morris' Ideal — Shorter 
Hours — Religion of Democracy 54 



PART II. 

Equipments vs. Endowments — . : 

Seventy Millions for Higher Education of the Few — Need of 
More Democratic Education — Two Hundred Thousand 
Equipment Better Than a Million Endowment — Moral 



CONTENTS. / 

PAGE. 

Stigma — Union of Culture and Skill — Smaller- Colleges Strug- 
gle for Lack of Income — Americanism to Conquer the World — 
Ideas Penetrate Deeper Than Shot — "Triumphant Democ- 
racy"— Every Child a Ftrll College Course 57 

The Prophetic Spirit Yet Lives— 

Men Simultaneonsly Whittling Models for Inventions— Col. 

Daniels' Work — Essentials in a Scientific Civilization ... 61 

Can Colleges Be Made Self-Supporting— 
- Chimerical but Only Incidental— "Literary Aristocracy"— "En- 
tirely Practical"— Retail Prices vs. Labor Cost— Individual 
Examples— Enough Difficulties to Arouse Enthusiasm — Men- 
tal Concepts Precede Accomplishments— The Equipment- 
First Years vs. Later Years — Booker V/ashington's Doubts — 
His Work— Other Schools— The True System 62 

Domestic Science and Service — 

Perplexing Problem — The American Spirit— Home Making an 
Art— "Born to Serve"— Lower Caste Degrading— Spirit of 
Slavery — Lady of Aristocratic Endowments 72 

Self-Support the Best Educational System— 

The Creative Talent Best— Incentive to Best Efifort— Per- 
sonal Adaptations — Formative Relations — Scientific Christian 
Democracy^— Beginning Life in School — Col. Parker's Ideal — 
Dr. Smith's Plea— Froebel's Philosophy— Spencer's Indict- 
ment of Misuse of School — The Main Purpose to Make 
Superior People 75 

Hand Training Aids Mental. Development — 

A Moral Advance— A Better Fitting for Professional Life- 
Educators With Mechanic Trades — The Early Common 
Schools— Preventing a "Labor Caste"— A Moral Taint— All 
Around Ability— Women's Needs— Creative Labor Man's 
Highest Attribute n 

Essentials of an Educational System — 

Complete Outfit for Production— Teachers With Pride in 
Handicraft Skill— Free to All 81 

Summary — 

Condensed Recapitulation • 82 

Philistinia — 

Pungent Paragraphs— Race of Pigmies— Pupils of Over Fifteen 
Self Supporting— John Ruskin's Words— Wm. Morris— Cur- 
riculum of Doing— Education Never Complete— Walls of Old- 
Time Colleges Crumbling . .......•••• 84 



APPENDIX 



Paper Before Minnesota Educational Association — Prelude by 
Editor Herbert — 

Mental Gymnastics — Going Back to Three R's — "Dwarfing, 
Soul-benumbing, Body-enfeebling Process" — Time and Vital- 
ity Wasted — World Cannot Be Turned Backwards— Better 
Day Coming 87 

Free System of Industrial Colleges — The, Hope of the Republic — 
Isaiah the Sociologist — Man More Precious Than Gold — No 
Morality Without Labor — A New Order of People — Any 
Truth-seeking Committee Can Be Satisfied — No Bread-and- 
Butter Question in School — Col. Parker's Ideal — Man's 
Endowment — Moses the First Labor Leader — Forty Years' 
Preparation as Farmer — Exemplar of Divine Human Life a 
Carpenter — -This Republic to Be Destroyed by Vandals From 
Within — Bishop Potter's Deduction — Mental Culture Valuable 
for Wealth Production — Schools Great Industrial Centers — 
Every County Have an Industrial College — A Higher Civil- 
ization Coming 89 

Address of Col. Edward Daniels Before Nebraska Legislature — 

Most Trades Crowded With Botches — Technical Ignorance 

Assaults Life — Submit the Plans to the People — Sciences 

That Relate to Life— Skilful Labor a Play — Love of Work 

Natural — Returns a Thousand Fold 97 

Text of Bills in Congress — 

Endorsements of Eminent Men ........... 100 

Plea for National League — 

Action Only Waiting Organized Effort — Twice as Much 
Government Aid as for War — Teachers Who Wish to Dis- 
tinguish Their Career 103 

Will You Help? 

Those Willing to Help the Movement 107 

Advertisement — 

Teachers Wanted for Industrial School South 108 



8— a 



ADDENDA. 



CONTENTS. 



"The Gospel of Labor" — 



PAGE. 



Civilization in Hayti — 

Mistaken Idea of Facts in the Case — Wrong Methods of Edu- 
cation — No Knowledge of Industry 

The Pitiful Phillipeno Farce — 

Government Teachers Improperly Taught — Not Posted in First 
Steps in Civilization — Imparting False Pride 

Contrast in Jamaica — 

Freedmen Taught Principles of Agriculture — A Steady Progress 
— No Infamous Crimes 

Anglo-Saxon Race Pride — 

We Need Not Be Too Arrogant — Our Way Has Been a Slow 
and Cruel Way Upward — Not Too Good Yet — English Pa- 
ganism — Our Own 

The Great Oberlins Example — 

Established an Agricultural School as First Step to Reform 
Robber People — Greatest Success in History 

"The Law of Human Progress" — 

Warring Classes and National Decay — Working Together for 
Common Good, Progress Swift and Sure — -The Teachings of 
the Nazarine in Economic Phrase 

An Irrigation City — 

Suggestions of Able Secretary of Irrigation League — Labor and 
Capital May Find Peace 

The World Wide Folly^ 

All the Nations Squandering Effort on War, Enough to Make 
the People All Well Off 

What Wasted Labor Could Do — 

The Worst Waste-Labor Power — Chicago Built by Surplus 
Labor — The Fair City 



ADDENDA — Index Continued. 

The Army of Discharged Labor — 

Cut Off From Any Chance to Earn an Honest Living — Desper- 
ate and Dangerous — Could Build Several Cities Like Chicago 
— Army of Destruction 8 

The Remedy for Child Slavery — 

No State Can Afford to Destroy Its Children lo 

Nervous Americans — 

Appalling Increase in Nervous .Diseases — President Roosevelt 
— Schools Should Strengthen Nevrous Children . . . ii 

An Insane Civilization — 

Abnormal Development an Equivalent to Insanity .... 12 

Mrs. Lew Wallace's Indictment — 

Severe Reflections on Our Educators — Must Not Be Pushed 

Aside — Charge Reaffirmed — Great School at Haubinda . . 13 

Teacher's Responsibility — 

The Sweeping Charge of Mrs. Lew Wallace — Educators Guilty 
— This Nation Too Precious to be Injured by Wrong Methods 
of Education 13 

Normal Schools — 

Superintendent Washburn Home — Teachers Cannot Change 

System — Too Conservative 14 

Teachers Prematurely Break Down — 

Fault of the System— Will N. E. A. Meet the Issue? ... 15 

People Must Make the Change — 

All Reforms Must Come Up from the People 15 

Initiating Self-Supporting Schools — 

How Can It Be Done? — Differing Ways — Dr. Trigg's Sugges- 
tion — Great Many Who Want the Chance 16 

Primary Industrial Lessons in Every School — 

Make the Determination First 18 

"More for Schools and Less for War" — 

War Spirit Sign of Decadent Morals — All Battleships Can Easily 
Be Destroyed — Better Educate the People — Every Child an 
All-Round Training iq 



INTRODUCTION. 



I approve in the strongest terms your proposal to add to the 
American system of education a department of Industrial Schools, 
and I would extend this department to the entire system. 

The hand and brain should be educated in close companionship, 
and no class of the students should be denied the inspiring luxury 
and benefit of appropriate tool using. 

I have no doubt that a well conducted department, of Industrial 
Education would prove MORE THAN SELF SUPPORTING, but if 
otherwise, the needful expense should be cheerfully provided as 
demanded by every just consideration. 

The marvelous success of the early public school system of the 
Eastern and Middle states was largely due to the fact that the 
learners' time was fairly well divided between the SCHOOL, the 
SHOP, and the FARM. The concurrent education of the hand does 
not hinder, but greatly HELPS THE CULTURE OF THE BRAIN. 

I believe we are on the eve of great improvements in the whole 
system of education, and that one of the foremost of these improve- 
ments wUl be FREE INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. 

Sincerely yours, 

Ohas. C. Bonney. 

We extract the above, a most fitting introduction, from the last kindly 
letter, received a few months before the death of the great souled man, 
whom we dare presume to call one of the pleasantest and most profitable 
friends of a lifetime ; a man who had attained to the highest aristocracy 
of character while retaining the most democratic sympathy and deepest 
interest in all that tended to uplift humanity. A former educator himself, 
he was keenly alive to plans for progress along all lines that shall prepare 
the people for a higher social order. 

His last great work was originating, presiding over and being the 
moving spirit of the famed World's Congress in '93, at the great Exposi- 
tion in Chicago, a work that set a new pace for the growth of the ideals 
of human unity, and his elaborate history of that wonderful school of 
progress is a gospel of highest interest to the race. S. H. C. 



PHILOSOPHY. 



"The man is tho't a knave or fool, 
Or bigot, plotting crime 
Who for advancement of his race 
, Is wiser than his time. " 

The old idea of human progress was that only by slow and 
almost imperceptible steps can civilization evolve to its highest 
forms, or the inherent evils of human nature be overcome and 
a highly civilized society be developed from the rudeness of 
barbaric ages. Today science has so revolutionized most of our 
early concepts that we find many of the things we have known 
for a long time are not so. 

The science of society and of human progress are now well 
enough known — though only very imperfectly as yet — to warrant 
us in the statement that the evolutionary progress in social 
growth can be, and has been most tremendously accelerated by 
well known means. It has been so visibly hastened through the 
influence of the common school system — aided by the mechanical 
and industrial training of frontier necessities — that greater 
progress was made in two generations after its adoption than 
for ten centuries before. 

The times demanded the common school ! Today the times 
demand another equally important step, to accelerate the evolu- 
tion of social progress, to prevent decadence, and keep up with 
mechanical progress, — the people need a deeper, broader, more 
complete education, made universal. To decree today that every 
child shall go through college — an industrial college — and as 
much "more as they may choose, is not as radical or difficult a 
step as was the decree of the common school by our fathers, 
and it will accelerate social advance and the development of 
character fully as much as that did, and, relatively, will not cost 
as much effort. 



12 PHILOSOPHY. 

From the data we now have, there can be no question but 
the dominant race can be, by well known means, so elevated, so 
freed from, tendency to crime and degeneracy, so exalted morally, 
so increased in industrial efficiency, so raised in average intelli- 
gence, as within a very few generations for all to be fully equal 
to the very best of the present citizens that could be selected, 
while the geniuses and superiors would tower to unheard-of 
heights of moral and intellectual worth, a progress that is now 
only thought of as the product of centuries of slow, continuous 
growth. 

While the unfortunate colored race can under proper condi- 
tions, which have now been well tested and have led a portion to 
such striking and marked advance in the forty years of freedom, 
be raised to a very fair degree of civiHzation, with their superiors 
attaining to high positions in social growth in a comparatively 
short period. 

This is the somewhat ambitious "Philosophy" of this little 
volume. 



FOREWORD, 



Industrial Education for All. 

"The glory of thinking is in work, and the dignity of work 

is in thinking." 

—Ferguson. 

No proposition will meet with more general approval than 
that our whole educational system needs a radical reform or 
total revolution. 

Herbert Spencer wrote his noted essay on "Education" mainly 
for the purpose of giving- the English system a scathing con- 
demnation. Our system has been copied from the English with 
but trifling, if any, improvement. 

Spencer declares that in accord with biological science each 
individual should be educated and developed along the same 
lines that the race has been developed, and we know in the 
evolution of the race that the hands have always been trained 
before the head. 

The prophet Froebel, who saw more perfectly than any other 
the whole philosophy of mental development, would begin with 
the hands in the Kindergarten, and continue this hand training 
through the entire course of study, teaching the hands the use 
of tools, and the head mechanic arts in advance of literary 
training. We have only touched the first step in his scientific 
plan in adopting the Kindergarten, totally neglecting the last 
and best of his full ideal. 

The pagan ideal was to despise labor: the Christian civiliza- 
tion professes to exalt creative labor; but so tainted are our 
social standards that we only partially accept this ideal, and our 
schools, from the highest to the lowest, tend, as Spencer said of 
the English system, away from labor, and to produce the mental 
concept of a labor caste, as immoral as it is unscientific. 

13 



14 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION FOR ALL. 

It is a radical charge for present-day educators to accept that 
their own education was wrong in method and defective in extent, 
and that their present work is really a failure and unworthy 
this scientific age, no matter how successful they may be in 
getting- pupils to recite lessons from text books. Yet there can 
be no question of the justice of this charge, and from many of 
our most progressive educators and thinkers come sweeping 
denunciations of the present system, but with no accord as to 
the remedy. It can be found only in a system of Industrial 
Schools, giving to every child in the nation a complete training. 

Memory -cramming and hand-neglecting has had its day; the 
teachers who have neither skill nor tact in handicraft, nor 
knowledge of mechanics, vvill be pushed aside by those who have 
developed a power and a pride in what they can do with their 
hands, as well as in purely mental achievements. 

An eminent educator has recentl}- declared that the training 
of the hands appears to have an almost miraculous power to 
bring out mental activity, develop character, and elevate the 
morals. Another admits that our universal education in the 
common schools has proven a partial failure — has not been the 
complete success expected (what wonder, when such paganish 
methods have been followed). And yet its inception was a 
wonderful upward step, and it set a new pace for the world's 
progress, and only needs to be made into a more correct system 
to be all and more than the most sanguine could expect. 

Another educator, equally prominent, declares that our whole 
school system "is top-heavy and impractical, not based upon 
proper foundations, and will soon topple over from its own 
weight."* A prominent literary lady declares that our common 



*When this severe arraignment of our educational system was first 
published in a popular Magazine, there was a very wide expression of 
indignant denial of its justice or truth, by a large class of the conservative 
teachers, who declared there was little or no ground for the accusation — 
that many, very many children were seriously harmed by the "forcing 
process," and the long confinement at memorizing study. 

In one school with which we were familiar, this denial was particularly 
-severe; yet in that very school were some most sad cases of entire nerve 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION FOR ALL. 1 5 

school system should be called "the modern method for tlic 
slaughter of the innocents ;" that it is a harmful, nerve-straining 
method, and does not prepare for active life as it should. 

"Pupils have to unlearn in life what they learn in school. They 
should be trained toward the activities of life, not away from them. ' ' 

—Wendell Phillips. 

There need be no argument over the necessity, the practical 
value and the moral uplift of general hand training in our 
schools ; the present trend is all in that direction. The rapid 
introduction of weaving, basket work, paper construction, raffia 
work, etc., in all the most progressive schools, is a marked 
advance over the average system for primary instruction, and 
is along the lines laid down by Froebel, whose inspired mind 

breakdown, some even among the colored children in the effort to "pass" 
to the high school. 

Yet so very conservative are most of the teachers, so sure are they 
that the present system is all it need be, so averse to any change or innova- 
tion, that no words of appreciation were given, no effort to improve was 
made in response to the words of warning from the eminent lady writer, 
who so truthfully told only the unvarnished truth of a method that should 
be changed, and have the hearty help of all educators to bring in a better 
condition. 

The Editors of the Magazine, in which the article was published; re- 
ported they had so many letters from parents and friends of the injured 
children from all sections of the country that it fully vindicated the indig- 
nant writer who only voiced the cry of suffering childhood. 

The general truth of the indictment has had a rather grotesque con- 
firmation in the advertising of a well known "Breakfast Food" maker, 
who refers to the well known fear of injury to school children and assures 
the anxious parents and friends, that their precious little ones will be 
safe from nerve breakdown — "if only they will feed them on his quack 
food stuff" — "ad absurdum." We fear the dear children will need a 
more complete remedy than the quackery of food that costs so much more 
money and talent to advertise, than to make. We are sure our suggestions 
for change in educational methods will not meet the approval of the con- 
servative class of teachers, but so widely and enthusiastically have the 
propositions of this little volume been endorsed by many eminent educa- 
tors, and able friends of education that we can with a fair degree of 
equanimity bear the gibes of the CONSERVATIVES. 



l6 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION FOR ALL. 

best understood the whole philosophy of the mental and moral 
development of children. 

But in our colleges, seminaries and universities, where purest 
science should find its best expression, we find instead the most 
persistent adhesion to the old and proven unscientific methods 
of memory cramming, with total neglect of hand training, and 
also the taint of a mental labor caste. All this is in complete 
antagonism to the suggestions of Spencer that a more scientific 
and practical education not only better fits for complete living, 
but for higher attainments and enjoyment of all that is ethical 
and esthetic in life. 

To prepare for the higher civilization that is surely coming, 
one of the first and most important steps is to prepare a superior 
average order of people by the adoption of a universal syste^^i 
OF FREE industrial EDUCATION, which shall be obligatory upon 
all and that will develop handicraft training as of first importance, 
not because it is of greater material benefit, but because it is a 
higher moral and spiritual attainment and is along the natural 
line of man's growth in mental power. A noted manual training 
expert declares "It produces a nezv and sivperior order of people," 
which is the highest conceivable aim. 

Labor, being "a portion of God's ozvn creative attribute 
beneficently bestoived upon man," must be cultivated as one of 
His highest gifts, and only by so doing can he be raised to his 
best estate. 

The remark is often made that our social progress does not 
keep pace with our mechanical progress. The school should set 
the pace and prepare the way for all upward growth. And there 
is no reason why social reform should not lead and surpass all 
mechanical achievements. When all the people are exalted to a 
higher average of mental power, as they so easily can be, the 
geniuses of such an age will tower to undreamed-of heights. 

Froebel thought his philosophy so far in advance of his time 
that it would require a couple of centuries for the world to come 
to see the value of it ; but, owing to the acceleration in evolu- 
tionary progress caused by the world-wide adoption of the common 
school and the more universal intelligence of the people, we have 



INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION FOR ALL. 17 

in a few decades come to see and accept his teachings ; and 
now we only need to introduce the best methods for bringing to 
pass what he saw was so important, viz. : to train hands, head 
and heart at the same time. 

In the low estimate of human life and the willingness to 
sacrifice it for selfish aims do we see the most radical persistence 
of paganism; and the willingness of modern society to keep a 
large portion of our workers in ignorance and degradation — like 
our coal miners, factory slaves and slum dwellers — is a sure sign 
of the survival of pagan cruelty. 

The Christ-came to "set prisoners free," to "break the chains 
of those who are bound:' What prisoners need His freeing 
hand and chain-breaking love as do the prisoners of ignorance — 
ignorant of their own native powers? 

Until every child is set free to use with skill his creative 
power of hand and head, it has not had the benefit of any 
properly called Christian civilization. 

The most important work for any nation is the education of 
its own citizens. If only this idea could once permeate our 
civilization ; if we could only have the idea adopted that people 
ire worth more than things ; if we could only get away from 
the accursed paganism of treating men and women, boys and 
girls, as merely tools with which to make money, or as servants 
for the few; if only we could see the hideous wrong and sin 
of war, and see that, instead of lavishing millions on warships, 
Catling guns and riot arms, it would be infinitely better to spend 
it on education ; if only we could see that to develop a higher 
average of citizenship is the highest ambition for a nation, — then 
might we in truth conquer and lead the world to the highest 
ideal of democracy. 

"Americanism shall permeate the world." 

—Stead. 

"To be a true American, is to be a citizen of the World!" 

—Ferguson. 



PART 1 



Pagan vs. Christian Civilization. 

NATIONAL GROWTH OR DECAY DEPENDENT ON PROGRESS IN 
EDUCATIONAL METHODS. 

"My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." 

—The Christ. 

I 
Pagan civilizations have been neither scientific nor democratic, 

but have instead been either transient or non-progressive. 

A true Christian civiHzation would be thoroughly scientific 
and democratic, progressive and permanent. 

The Anglo-Saxon civilization, professing to be Christian, is 
really so tainted with paganism that it cannot be permanent 
unless made more democratic and more scientific. 

Along no other line is the contrast more sharply defined 
between the unscientific nature of the old pagan civilizations and 
the practical nature of a real Christian civilization than in the 
almost infinitely differing concepts in regard to the dignity and 
honor of skilled creative labor and the merit of personal service. 

To the old-time pagan the honor and nobility of skill in labor 
that should serve his kind was an absolutely unthinkable propo- 
sition : he could not conceive it. Whether he belonged to the 
Greek or Roman cult or to the less cultured nations, his idea of 
honor and employment was war — to kill and destroy ; his needful 
labor and personal service must be done by a slave, a human 
beast of burden. 

This through long ages has been the only concept, and it has 
led to the neglect and degradation of the toilers, the real wealth 
producers and creators, and to the inevitable decay of national 
life and civilization. 

In the Gi'eek Republic, though they had high ideals of liberty 

19 



20 THE CHRIST IDEAL. 

for the favored classes, and the state cared for their education 
and training, they looked with contempt on labor, and the 
inevitable blight of luxurious profligacy came to hands untaught 
in useful service. The saving science of the union of skill in 
handicraft and m.ental culture was neglected ; and sure decay 
came to the Republic, in spite of its intellectual development, as 
it had to all previous civilizations, and will come to all, to the 
end of time, who neglect this science. There can be no exceptions 
to this unvarying rule. It is an inherent principle of human life. 

The Christ, the teacher of a divine social order, came as a 
toiler, a creator of homes among an industrious people. In Him 
was concentrated and exemplified all the democratic ideals of all 
the poets, prophets and sages from Moses' time down. He 
taught the essentials of a scientific social order ; He chose His 
teachers and preachers of the new social ideal from the laboring 
classes. 

He gave the keynote to his ideal in one terse sentence, ''My 
Father worketpi hitherto, and I work." 

At the tragic climax of His pathetic career, by a sacrament 
of ineffable tenderness He taught His followers for all time that 
in loving, useful, personal service to their kind there is no such 
thing as a menial ministry; but that the noblest and greatest, 
the highest and most honored, the really most aristocratic and 
exalted, are they who can serve most and best. A most difficult 
lesson for hum.anity to accept then and now, but a fact of most 
momentous importance in the science of social or national 
permanence. 

In His immortal parable of the "Good Samaritan" He showed 
beyond the possibility of cavil that the hand of him that serves 
in time of need is the hand of a brother indeed, worthy of all 
honor and love ; and that much-neglected lesson was renewed 
that we are our brothers' keepers, and that to neglect those who 
need our ministry or who do our work is a violation of the 
ethical laws of life. And according to the "Christ Ideal" we 
have in the modern industrial world a "Jericho Road'' of economic 
wrong which forces boys and girls to bread-winning before they 
have had proper or adequate training to develop their mental, 



THE CHRIST IDEAL. 21 

moral or physical powers ; and along this road are thousands 
lying robbed, wounded and helpless, waiting the ministry of the 
coming "Good Samaritan" who will perforce give them the 
needed mental and handicraft training to make them citizens 
worthy of the coming age. 

The transforming power of this lofty ideal of the honor of 
service among the immediate followers of the Christ's new social 
order was strikingly exemplified in the remarkable change in 
St. Paul from the haughty, idle and supercilious Pharisee to the 
industrious tent-maker and preacher of the new social ideal of 
universal brotherhood, working with his hands for needful sup- 
port, that he tnight be independent of all men while preaching 
so radical a social change. It was a most impressive lesson for 
all people and all times. It was the highest and most scientific 
uplift of human ideals. It was the beginning of the end of the 
old false pagan ideal in regard to the serviUty or dishonor of 
labor and personal service. 

THE WIDE CONTRASTS IN IDEALS. 

Yet today, with all our supposed advance in science and our 
regard for Christian ideals, we may well be startled by the 
persistence and dominance of pagan social ideals among us in 
so many forms ; and our labor concepts are among the worst. 
With the persistence of chattel slavery until a very recent date, 
among all so-called "Christian nations" has persisted the base 
and pernicious idea of the lowly nature of personal service and 
creative labor, and the equally pernicious and purely pagan idea 
that there is honor or "style" in useless idleness, instead of actual 
disgrace and danger and ever increasing unhappiness, which is 
the scientific and unchanging fact, as true in the mansion as in 
the cabin. 

It is well-nigh impossible to appreciate at once the infinite 
gulf that separates the false pagan ideal in regard to labor from 
the lofty and scientific Christian ideal, as so impressively inter- 
preted by that great seer of education, the immortal Froebel, 
whose name shall stand in future ages beside those of Isaiah and 
St. Paul among the illumined souls inspired to point the upward 



22 PAGAN IDEALS. 

path of humanity. "Labor," he tersely declared, "is a portion 
OF God's creative attribute beneficently bestowed upon 

MAN." 

If this profound and radically revolutionary philosophy is 
essentially correct, as we deem it to be, then how fundamentally 
important it is that this divine attribute be cultivated and 
developed to its utmost extent — how sacrilegious not to do so — 
how wicked to neglect the Godlike gift — and how vastly different 
this ideal on which to build a civilization from the pagan concept 
of the disgrace of labor; and how little wonder that pagan 
civilizations went down or failed to become progressive and 
democratic when demoralized by such an unscientific ideal. All 
history of all nations, ages and individuals proves that in the 
moral virtues of patriotism and altruism the Immortals whose 
examples and teachings have helped the race upward and forward 
have been those whose hands have been trained in creative labor 
and useful service; while everywhere and at all times, from 
Solomon's time down, the vices and follies and profligacies that 
have destroyed individuals and nations have come almost wholly 
from the idle and those whose hands have not been trained to 
labor. 

Will any candid mind dare deny that we have already again 
established the pagan ideal of a labor caste in our social stand- 
ards, or that in our institutions of higher education the tendency 
is away from labor and towards the pagan concept of a disgrace 
in labor, and to perpetuate this false standard, and that, as a 
natural consequence, most of our teachers, preachers and mission- 
aries go forth to still farther spread this baneful idea, this 
disintegrating heresy, this immoral, because unscientific, standard.^ 
No, doubt this false concept has also been strengthened by the 
false theological dogma that all labor is a curse, instead of an 
exalting, Godlike attribute ; and it has been most tremendously 
exaggerated of late by the false, shoddy ideals of a spurious 
aristocracy of money without culture ; and one of the most serious 
problems in the future of our civilization is how to remove this 
root of the upas tree of pagan folly and re-establish the true 
concept as the basis of our civilization. It is not a light task, 



PAGANISM DOMINANT. 23 

but one that will tax to the uttermost the formative forces of a 
new educational system. 

And we believe it can only be done by beginning a new system 
in a new type of colleges and universities, working on a new 
basis, and with esseiatially new ideas. The older ones are too 
conservative, too set in conventional methods. It is too hard for 
educators to admit that their own education was incomplete in 
quantity or imperfect in method, or that their present methods 
can be radically improved upon. It is a common belief that of 
all conservatives the average educator is most conservative ; so, 
like all reforms, what we dare plead for must come from a 
demand of practical people, aided as it will be by many of the 
progressive teachers and prominent educators who have seen the 
wrong of the present system, even as the great philosopher 
Spencer saw it so long ago. 

PAGANISM STILL DOMINANT IN OUR CIVILIZATION. 

"More has been given to us than to any people heretofore, and 
THEREFORE more is required of us. Civilization as it progresses 
requires a higher conscience, a wider, loftier, truer public spirit. 
Failing these, civilization must pass into destruction." 

—Henry George. 

To many it will seem a startling and antagonistic proposition 
that our civilization is still largely tainted with pagan concepts 
and standards ; but remember it was the profound philosopher, 
Herbert Spencer, who made this indictment against the English 
system of education — and ours has been an essential copy of 
theirs — and if pagan ideals have been found in such high places 
as colleges and universities, how sure may we be to find them 
perm.eating all our civilization, as we do when we carefully 
analyze the lack of scientific basis for so many "long-established" 
social customs. 

For example, we have continued chattel slavery in most 
so-called Christian nations until a most recent date — a purely 
pagan custom. Our child wage slavery is but a slight modifi- 
cation of the sam.e. War, too, and all its accom.paniments, is 
purely pagan and barbaric in the extreme, utterly out of place 



24 DISBANDING ARMY AND NAVY. 

in an age of scientific democracy. Ernest Crosby shows quite 
conclusively that the silly, childish vanity of the savage's love 
for the display of his war paint and feathers finds its persistent 
duplicate in the present-day arrogance of the soldier when 
ornamented with brass buttons, shoulder straps and the unspeak- 
ably silly pomp of military regalia ; and he shows that the Peace 
Society or the great Czar need only do away with this relic of 
pagan folly to stop at once all wars — that our hateful army and 
navy would vanish like morning dew, if just deprived of their 
showy dress, the remains of the weakest, silliest expression of a 
childish savage. 

We iind this strange, persistent love of gewgaws, war paint 
and feathers so adhering to all forms of military service that not 
even a Sunday school "Boy's Brigade" nor the military drill for 
exercise in our schools can be had without the brass buttons, 
shoulder straps and striking dress. 

But let us carry the Crosby philosophy one step farther and 
decree that those who study the art of human butchery shall wear 
the uniform of the butchers in our slaughter houses and abattoirs 
— the blue denim overalls and blouse — and we may be sure our 
paganish army and navy would not be held together a month. 

In the use of jewelry and glaring dress and oft-changing 
fashion we see again the strange persistence of paganism. 

In medicine and religion we dare not enumerate the evidences 
of pagan hoodoo and dogmatic superstition. We fear it taints 
these streams also and needs the light and help of a more 
scientific system of education. A system of education whose 
chief corner-stone shall be creative skilled labor. 

FROEBEL's ideals AND PHILOSOPHY. 

"Man must be doing something, for in him throbs the CREA- 
TIVE impulse." 

—Henry George. 

"No high degree of morals can be established or maintained 

without manual labor. " .„ , , 

— Froebel. 

It seems unaccountable that such deference has been paid to 



froebel's philosophy. 25 

the great educator, Froebel, and yet so little known of the breadth 
of his philosophy of a complete educational system, of which 
the kindergarten, beneficent as it is, is only the A, B, C. In his 
ideal the carrying forward of a system of handicraft training 
through all the subsequent processes of education was fully as 
essential as the kindergarten for the first step. He looked upon 
man as essentially a creator, and the development of his creative 
faculties as a necessary part of his education. He declared that 
it was of but little use to develop the receptive powers of brain 
without, at the same time and as a necessary reflex action, 
developing the active and formative powers of the mind. 

He made skilled labor a part of morality and religion, the 
culture of the creative attribute a portion of spiritual growth. 

He would look with horror at attempts at race elevation by 
cultivating the memory with facts and literary concepts, while 
neglecting to develop the creative powers of brain and skill of 
hand. He would follow the pathway of all race progress with 
each individual of every race: first cultivating the hand to do; 
then the brain to remember how and why. 

To express one's self and to develop one's self by creative 
skill of the hands was with him a foundation principle; and we 
shall never develop the able, all-round faculties of our citizenship 
until we absorb and imitate his profound philosophy. 

The able educator, Hughes, justly declares that English and 
American educators have gone to the farthest possible distance 
frorn his theory, and are slowly and painfully coming to see the 
wisdom and necessity of more closely following his plans. The 
results have been pitiful enough with the white race, but most 
disastrous with the unfortunate races; and harm instead of 
benefit has been done to thousands of victims of ill-directed 
philanthropy by a false method of education. 

In his able analysis of Froebel's Laws of Education he de- 
votes a long and most interesting chapter to the value of play as 
an educational force, full of most practical suggestion. And 
we deem it but a portion of the philosophy of handicraft training 
in developing the all-around character and ability for complete 
living. It is a portion of Froebel's teaching that as yet has not 



26 froebel's philosophy. 

had one-tenth the attention it deserves. And we arfe sure 
differing types of play are but the preparations for differing 
social ideals. 

There are plays that represent the Co-operative and Emulative 
idea, as well as those that belong to Competition and Destructive 
ideals of social life. In the emulative play, success is gained 
by skill, activity and alertness, which does not tend at all to 
harm those who do not win ; while in the competitive play, as 
in business, it is the idea to down the opponent, with cruel force 
if need be, to risk life and limb to wrest from him the prize at 
any cost; which correctly suggests the wide difference in morals 
between competition and emulation. 

In manual and industrial training, up to a certain point, are 
found many of the benefits Froebel saw in properly directed play. 
It is only a question of how much of each is best. In manual 
training schools it has been found that pupils will often volun- 
tarily leave play for practice in the workroom. 

The recent establishment of an organized systematic public 
playground in the city of Syracuse is but one of the steps along 
the development of this great ideal of progress. Children should 
be guided and directed in this as in school or work. 

If only we would come to see that the production and 
development of superior citizens is the grandest aim of civiliza- 
tion, how these different phases would be worked out, even as 
were the improvement of the Engine, Press and Auto, each 
having the intensest study of the ablest mechanical minds. 

We need a touch of Isaiah's prophetic conception of the time 
when "A man shall be more precious than fine gold." 

Froebel's great advance over the methods of Pestalozzi was 
in the discovery that the receptivity of the brain of a child must 
be followed or accompanied by a corresponding activity of the 
hand. When a nev/ idea is presented, it must do something with 
its hands or create something to correspond with the concept of 
the mind, to get its full or approximate value. It was a funda- 
mental discovery, and has a most tremendous practical bearing 
on race elevation as well as on individual training. 

Pestalozzi would teach "object lessons" by having the teacher 



FROEnEL's PHILOSOPHY. 27 

bring the "object" in her hand, or, perchance, allow the pi^pils 
to take it or touch it ; while Froebel would have them "do 
something" or "make something" with or from the object. 

' He would not teach even Geography by the use of the eye 
alone, but would take objects like an orange, a banana, a piece 
of ivory, tea or coffee,, and go with the class on imaginary voyages 
to all the countries where these things are obtained, pointing out 
the various routes on the m.ap with all possible of instructive 
detail to arouse an interest in the minds of the class through the 
pleasure and excitement of the trip. 

He would not teach Botany until the child had planted and 
grown flowers and had learned some lessons of the life and 
development of flowers, and then would connect the abstract 
science with the already aroused interest in plant life. 

He distinctly taught that those who train one part only of 
man's nature to the neglect of the others are producing abnormal 
beings out of harmony with God's laws. .What a reflection on 
present-day school methods! 

Froebei seems to have been the first to discover that not to 
develop handicraft is to actually weaken and decrease mental 
power, a most suggestive thought for those who speak of 
"wasting time from study to work with the hands" or who feel 
that time in school used in hand training is wasted. 

He saw, too, the high moral value of teaching the young the 
ideals of the true interdependence of "eaeh to all, and all to 
each" rather than the intensity of selfish individualism. What- 
ever strengthened the bond of human unity he saw was divine 
and religious in it's influence on character, and the wickedness of 
all caste divisions of society he clearly appreciated. 

He seemed to fully grasp the practical value of the Christ 
philosophy of the entire brotherhood of men, their perfect unity 
with each other and with their Creator, and in carrying this 
concept into effect in all one's life is the hope of the elevation 
of the race; and in no other way can this ideal be so perfectly 
developed as in schools where all work together for a common 

end. 

He was a seer of Collectivism ; he saw clearly and perfectly 



28 A SEER OF COLLECTIVISM. 

how the highest possible development of the individual is perfectly 
compatible with the closest Mutualism of Co-operation. He was 
one of the early prophets of the coming Co-operative Age, and 
taught the path by which it can be best brought about, the possible 
preparation for a Millennial Epoch, through the more complete 
education of the producing classes and by ennobling labor for all 
classes. 

He clearly saw the immorality of the selfish spirit of Competi- 
tion as distinguished from the nobler one of Emulation. 

These sentiments were more recently affirmed by the late 
Colonel Parker, of the Chicago Norm.al School, who pubHcly 
declared "that . the greatest work to be accomplished by the 
comm.on school system is the cultivation of a spirit of mutualism, 
altruism and democracy among the people ; failing this," he 
emphatically declared, "the schools failed of their highest 
mission." In no other way can they so perfectly perform this 
work as when teachers and pupils work together a portion of 
the time for the common good, while teaching and learning the 
invaluable lessons of mechanics and of productive labor that shall 
provide for their mutual needs. 

"Civilization is Co-operation!" —Henry George. 

froebel's plans for small schools. 

The essentials of Froebel's plans for the smaller schools, 
where the teacher has no experience and no apparatus nor 
text books on handicraft training of a primary character, may 
be safely begun in the primary grade, whether the pupils have 
had kindergarten training or not, by beginning with cutting 
familiar objects from paper ; then folding papers into envelope 
forms, triangles, squares, etc., etc. ;* then, with heavier paper, 
making boxes, cornucopias and all possible things by folding 
and creasing, all the time cultivating exactness in corners and 
edges, and general neatness of work, and closeness in following 
copy. 

* Many varieties of this work are illustrated in a little text book of 
handicraft work for common schools by Professor Smith, of Chicago. 



PLANS FOR SMALL SCHOOLS. 29 

A few hours of this each week will delight the children, and 
the work will be carried forward at home instead of the noisy, 
purposeless plays, and will vastly help in gaining the perfect 
control of hands and the culture of the eye so useful in all life's 
activities. 

From this the steps will be gradual along the varied forms of 
basket making, weaving in colors, braiding with three, then four 
or six, strands of strings, braiding corn husk mats, sewing from 
the simplest basting stitch to the most difficult blind darning and 
elaborate embroidery.* 

By the time the sixth grade is reached, the simpler forms of 
Sloyd may be taken up— the drawing of simple forms on wood, 
then whittling to the drawing, and in all cases the work finished 
with sandpaper to have the completed product look smooth and 
neat. 

The children from the Kindergarten up should be taught to 
plant seeds and care for plants, flowers, shrubs and vines, and the 
taste started for the future study of botany — a sure beginning 
for future home decoration with flowers and beautiful living 
things. 

From the seventh grade the more difficult steps in Sloyd 
should be introduced : first, drawing more useful things on wood 
(paper cutters, wood cake spoons, potato mashers, measuring 
rules, hammer or ax handles), then whittling or planing or shav- 
ing them to the forms drawn, or to samples, making useful or 
ornamental things, all the time striving to improve the technique 
of form and finish; clay modeling, v/ater color painting, with 
more or less of free-hand drawing or sketching from nature, 
according to the taste or ability of the pupils. 

In the same simple but eft'ective manner may "nature studies" 
be made most useful and intensely interesting, and a grand 
preparation for later studies in biology or zoology. If there are 
no text books in the school, or the teacher has had no training 
along this line, let the beginning be with the school, or a class, in 



*A11 this is artistically illustrated in a little book by Mrs. Blair, of 
the Minnesota State Agricultural College, making sewing an art indeed. 



30 PLANS FOR SMALL SCHOOLS. 

the study of domestic animals, their habits, their varying instincts 
and intelhgence ; then with the wild birds and animals, learning 
all possible of their peculiar modes of living, their cunning and 
means of defense; then with the honey bees and insects, getting 
the pupils to learn from inquiry or study of their structure, their 
ways of life and means of defense, what species are related, their 
transformations from the egg and worm to the perfect insect on 
wings, and of any that do not pass through the chrysalis state, 
etc., etc. And it will surprise the teacher who has never tried 
it to see how much of most interesting lore can be gathered and 
combined by the efforts of a small school, and of what intense 
interest it will be, and how it will add to the value and depth of 
the text-book study to thus broaden the field of investigation, and 
how much it will help to create the love of observation, which 
is one of the highest aims of all school work. 

Let no teacher fear to begin some of this work because of 
lack of training or of text books that guide into any set method 
of procedure. In no way may a teacher come into more complete 
and desirable touch or sympathy with pupils than to experiment 
and learn with them to do the things that are out of the conven- 
tional rut of school work. To ask them for help and suggestions 
will be a favor unspeakable, and there is no better way to "draw 
out" their best thought or ingenuity, and thus double the value 
of the lessons learned. Often, too, it will be well tO' ask for 
answers to problems or explanations that will require time and 
study to solve, and thus encourage that reflection that is the 
highest form of study. 

And in all this work outside of text-book study let there be 
no suspicion that the time is at all wasted or misused ; instead 
it is likely to be the most valuable and profitable of any in the 
whole school work ; it will rest and refresh, and renew the power 
and interest in regular study, and of itself it will "draw out" 
observation, comparison and analysis ; it will strengthen logic, or 
the power to reason from cause to effect ; it will develop the 
control of the hand and eye, and the taste for observing things, 
the best method of effort and execution. 

And one of the best results will be the improved moral tone 



METHODS FOR FEEBLE MINDED. 3I 

of the discipline of the school room, for nothing is worse than 
the dull, uninterested effort to memorize simply because one must ; 
and to be fairly decorous from fear only, is far from developing 
nobility of character or high morality as when done from the 
pride in doing well, and an inte/est in the work of the school, 
which these methods will inspire. The pupil who reluctantly 
and perforce memorizes dry facts and abstract statements of 
principles is touched on an entirely lower moral plane, if not 
absolutely injured morally; while if the active, intense interest 
and joy of learning things for their own sake is aroused and 
sustained, the moral tone of the pupil is exalted and his higher 
character developed. 

MATERIALS FOR MECHANICAL STUDY ALL ABOUT. 

In every school room are materials for study of mechanics 
and the achievements of skilled labor ; the very seats and desks 
are most prolific texts for interesting studies on the mechanics 
of their construction — the pitch of backs and seats, the hinge and 
action of the seat, the beautifully joined strips of v^^ood and the 
methods of union of wood and metal, and, above all, the history 
of the evolution of the school seat, from the old-time slabs, set 
on rude legs put in auger holes, with no table in front to rest the 
books upon, to the present scientific perfected school seat, worthy 
of extreme admiration as a work of real art. 

So can the teacher develop a wealth of material of study in 
all things about the school and homes of the pupils — the farm ' 
wagon vs. the buggy, the wheelbarrow and the bicycle, the sewing 
machine and the reaper or seed planter, all will afford lessons of 
most fascinating interest to both pupils and teachers who are 
looking for progress in the art of teaching. 

METHODS with THE FEEBLE-MINDED. 

"Education is leading human souls to what is best, and getting 

what is hest out of them. 

Wholesome human employment is the first and best method in 

all education, mental as well as bodily." _ , t. i • 

—John Kuskm. 



32 THE FEEBLE MINDED, 

We find that the unfortunate child of feeble mind, or no 
apparent mind at all, who cannot possibly mentally grasp the 
abstract idea of the difference between one and two, can be led 
along by first taking one apple in his hand, tasting its goodness 
to arouse an interest, then, taking two apples in his hands, taste 
of each to see that both are good; and -slowly but surely there 
comes to the glimmering mind the fact and the difference between 
only one apple in one hand or an apple in each hand ; and so 
on, gradually, the dull mentality comes to know two and, finally, 
three apples in his hands, when he could not possibly by seeing 
them with his eyes. After the awakened mind has learned by 
the touch of the hands of the one apple and of two, three or 
more apples, he is given a knife to handle ; he is pricked with its 
sharp point and slightly cut with its keen edge ; he learns to 
respect and fear these qualities. Then he learns to cut his apple 
and eats the pieces, and he has gained a power to do. Then 
slowly he uses the knife to cut a piece of wood. A pencil mark 
is made on the thin piece of wood, and he is helped to cut the 
end rounding, to follow the pencil mark. He is delighted with 
the, to him, great feat. So, slowly but surely, he is led along in 
the development of creative power till, perchance, he can make a 
rude but fairly correct foot rule and mark with a pencil the 
inches on it in imitation of a foot rule taken as a sample to work 
from. This is an achievement to him quite equal to Watts' first 
successful movement of a piston in the cylinder by the power of 
steam. He enjoys doing and making, and a new interest is 
aroused. Slowly and gradually the growing power is led along 
till he is shown a box with his apples in it, but no cover to enclose 
them. The box is just as long as his rude rule, cut out with 
such labor and joy. 

He is shown a saw, and his fingers feel the sharp teeth. He 
is led to saw off a piece of the board, and after a few trials his 
foot rule is laid upon the board and he is helped to saw off a 
piece just long enough to cover his box and hide the apples. It 
is lifted and replaced, till he sees the difference between them 
covered and uncovered. Then some nails are shown and felt, and 
a hammer is put in his hands and he is allowed to pound. After 



THE FEEBLE MINDED. 33 

a little he is helped to- drive some nails and his box is closed. 
He cannot now touch nor take his prized apples — a new and 
startling conception. Then he is helped to draw the nails, but 
made to do it mainly with his own hands, and then take the 
uncovered apples in his hands, and again cover and nail the lid 
down. Then the cover is fastened on with screws and a screw 
driver — all done by his own hands. Then a longer box is 
brought, and the cover already cut is shown to be too short ; then 
the box measured by his own rule and found to be twice the 
length of the rule, and the rule used all the time in his own hands 
to mark off the cover two rule lengths. It is sawed off and 
found to cover the box and enclose his apples. Then a knife 
and sandpaper are used to smooth the rough board so it will feel 
different to the touch of the hand. And so, on and on, the hand 
leading to the concept of the mind in nature's own way, till the 
seemingly utterly vacant mind is educated, drawn out to greater 
and greater activity, and the power of doing things leads on to 
usefulness of greater or less degree, till often the use -of simple 
tools is acquired ; and finally the lawn mower and the bicycle are 
mastered, the hoe and spade in the garden, or the broom and 
ouster in the house; and usefulness and enjoyment takes the 
place of painful vacuity. 

Along essentially the same line have we seen the stupid, listless 
colored boy, who had with difficulty been taught to lead the mule 
to water, to tie him securely in the stall, and, as a tremendous 
achievement, to harness and hitch him to the cotton cultivator, but 
who could no more take a monkey wrench and take off the nut 
and washer from the plow bolt than he could run an engine or a 
Hoe's printing press. Later the same boy, as seemingly vacant 
of mechanical brain as the vacant-minded child who could not 
learn "tivo" was of mathematics, became enthused to own a 
second-hand wheel ; and, under the magic power of its touch in 
his own hands, he gradually came to have a glimmering sense of 
its intricate mechanism ; and the mystery of the monkey wrench 
and the nut and washer on the bolt became plain and simple to 
the drazun-out faculty. 

The same boy engaged to assist the village blacksmith, and, 



34 UNFORTUNATE RACES. 

feeling a sense of already having had a mechanical experience of 
no mean value on his wheel, would soon be able to take to pieces 
the broken plow or cultivator and put it together correctly when 
mended; would place the bit in a brace and bore a correct hole 
through the broken plow beam and select and insert the correct 
sized bolt and draw it to place with the wrench; would soon do 
quite intricate jobs of taking down or putting up wagons and 
buggies, and in time be quite an accomplished helper in this 
difficult art of handicraft ; and in all such cases, with this added 
mental power, gained mainly through the discipline of the hand, 
there comes an elevation of morals ; and the lazy, thriftless, 
''frivolous," loafing fellow becomes possessed of pride and self- 
respect and industrious largely in proportion to the extent of his 
training in handicraft skill — thus in a very practical and forceful 
manner confirming Froebel's theory that through creative labor 
there is moral and spiritual uplift ; and only with this type of 
education is there any hope of race elevation.* 

THE UNFORTUNATE RACES. 

For the unfortunate races to fill their minds with literary 
culture, while neglecting to- develop their creative power of hands, 
is much more disastrous than an attempt to build the school house 
by rearing the bell tower and roof before any structure is begun 
below. The wreck of the tower may possibly be saved and 
properly elevated after the lower structure is erected ; but those 
who think they have attained the pinnacle by a college diploma, 
with no discipline of hand, are above and beyond any hope of 
being taught any new lessons. They have been taught by that 
strongest of all tea<:hers, imitation, to do as their teachers do, 

*How few of the conventional teachers realize, that essentially the 
same principles should maintain for the bright and precocious pupil, as 
for the mentally vacant, differing in degree only, but following the same 
essential steps of progress from hand to brain. 

While the bright and precocious child may be trained to learn from 
the study of the abstract, it will much sooner and better grasp and retain 
by following nature's plan of the hand first, next the brain, in acquiring 
the knowledge of how to use zvisdom. 



UNFORTUNATE RACES. 35 

who, according to Froebel, Herbert Spencer and thousands of 
others, have been educated to paganish ideals, not to the true 
science of correct development, which always trains the hands 
first. 

"No law of human nature is more dominant than our tendency 
to imitate those we consider above us. ' ' 

In the race problem this is one of the fundamentals that must 
be reckoned with. We do most heartily wish that all the colored 
theological seminaries of the present system could be peremptorily 
wiped out or changed to such as the grand old apostle, St. Paul, 
would approve. His methods were to set up first his tent maker's 
shop, and then teach his preachers and teachers of a higher social 
and religious ideal, viz., that in self-reliant, self-respecting, self- 
supporting labor of skilled hands is the first elementary and 
fundamental lesson in a Christian life or civilization. If this 
type could become the established order, we should not so often 
hear the merited severe criticism of thoughtful Southern people 
of the colored preachers of the South ; and there is no question 
but that our Northern brethren of the cloth would gain a Pauline 
power along the same line. 

"To work was from the beginning, and is today the joy, the pride 

and the honor of life." .„. , .^ 

—Bishop Doane. 

"If any will not work, neither shall he eat." 

—Saint Paul, 

A teacher's respqnsibility. 

In view of Spencer's indictment of present methods of 
education in his widely read essay, we have never been able to 
understand how the progressive, earnest, conscientious teachers 
have been willing to go on without protest, continuing a system 
so tainted with paganish ideals, and how so many are even 
adverse to any effort towards change or improvement. BuL we 
do know that in- general the educators are the very Conservatives 
of Conservatism, and some are so rooted in egotism as to be 
vmwilling to admit that any possible advance can be made on 



36 teacher's responsibility. 

their own methods, and even so blinded as to boast of their 
adhesion to the false ideal of lookmg with contempt on labor. 

We cannot understand how true, earnest, present-day teachers 
can be willing to go on and lead their unwilling young students 
through all the "flounderings, mental gymnastics" and mind- 
dwarfing processes of the present courses in our high schools, 
seminaries and colleges, in view of these lessons from Spencer 
and his lucid proof that the scientific nature methods would so 
much better fit for actual life — so much better prepare for home 
and citizenship — and last, but not least, fit for the esthetic culture 
of exalted attainments in the highest realms of art and music and 
for the moral and religious development of our strangely complex 
being ; or when they consider the teachings of Froebel, the modern 
Socrates, who saw so clearly how Nature's way of education is 
always from the concrete to the abstract — from the hand to the 
brain — from action to reason. 

Yet in spite of it all, in spite of the long and loud mutterings 
of discontent at the present system, our teachers stand in the 
way and continue to teach as they were taught, instead of being, 
as they ought to be, the radical leaders along the path of mental 
evolution and progress. 

Yet no one has ever dared to oppose Spencer's logic, that to 
cram memory with what will be quickly forgotten is not 
developing, but that it is practically starvation to deny the mind 
the quality of food it has a longing for and that will give it 
strength, along the lines that will be continually added to by life's 
activities, which is the true ideal for educational efforts. His 
philosophy stands all unchallenged and unanswered, though a 
m.ost severe and sweeping denunciation of present methods. 

We are sure this wrong method of mental development has 
had a most unsa:lutary effect on our national character and made 
us as a people so weak in logic that we endure with strange apathy 
and stupid submission the many illogical enslavements and taxa- 
tions of a corrupt and foolish political and economic system; and 
we believe we have never attained to our proper place as an 
entirely free and progressive people, as we should do under a 
truer educational svstem. 



GARDEN SCHOOLS. 



37 



"The knowledge obtained from books is but the tool to develop 
the true wisdom for life." 

But we are glad to welcome the signs of an awakened 
consciousness of a better order and all the wide-awake and pro- 
gressive spirits among our educators and, better still, among those 
who are outside the profession but earnestly watching its work- 
ings and effects, all alive to the benefit of going at once to 
Nature's. own method of "feeling after knowledge" first by the 
hand, then learning of the abstract later ; and the rapidly advancing 
demand for teachers who can teach the hands to do, as well as 
the head to think, proves that the new order is at hand. 

"Industrial training of the rural population is one of the most 
important problems before the American people." 

—Ex-Mayor Abram S. Hewitt. 

EXAIMPLES AND PRECEDENTS. 

Some very successful experiments have been made where 
industrial features were given due prominence with most gratify- 
ing results. 

GARDEN SCHOOLS. 

One of the mO'St practical in the line of this new system of 
education was established by the Cash Register Company of 
Dayton, Ohio, at the suggestion of its able president. 

Nearly one hundred boys were gathered off the streets and 
each one given a garden plat of about six rods, where he was 
taught gardening and floriculture by an expert. The boys were 
given all the products of their work, and prizes for attention and 
superior skill. Their work continued only four hours per day — 
two in the morning and two in the afternoon — so as not to 
become monotonous ; and it has been found to be not only a 
most charming study, that the boys look forward to with eager- 
ness and enthusiasm, but it has had a most wonderful moral 
influence. The rowdy, hoodlum boys — the so-called "toughs" of 
the street, who were the terror of the neighborhood — have become 
gentlemanly and polite, and find their work more attractive than 
their old sports ; and a striking proof of this change is found 




Receiving Instructions from Head Gardener. 




Midsummer Work. 




The Flower Path. 
38 



GARDEN SCHOOLS. 39 

in the fact that lots in that neighborhood have more than trebled 
%xi value. 

The success was beyond the promoter's highest anticipations, 
'he boys becoming so changed under the charm of being workers 
iyith God in Nature's magic wonderland of growing things. 

These boys from the garden schools have changed the whole 
tenor of their lives. Their homes will have flowers, trees and 
vines; their leisure will be likely to be spent in a garden rather 
than in a saloon. They have tasted one of the highest joys of 
life at Nature's ov/n fountain. 

Can there be a possible doubt that these factory boys will be 
more likely to be law-abiding, home-loving citizens for these 
hours of teaching and work in the first and highest place of man's 
labor? This love of caring for living, growing things, this 
communion with Nature's most wonderful and charming ways, 
is one of the greatest safeguards for all young people — girls as 
well as boys ; and no industrial school will be complete without 
its farm and garden. 

In other garden schools or children's farms one-half the 
product of the plat was sold to pay for seed and teachers' salaries, 
and in this way were nearly self-supporting; and, no doubt, in 
the saving of crime alone these schools paid a thousand per cent 
on their cost, and should be established in every city in the 
country. 

It may be a question for serious consideration how much our 
Sunday school workers ma}' learn from, the moralizing influence 
of these garden schools. It is certainly an inspiring fact that 
village boys and girls who have won the name of "toughs" can 
be brought to comparative good order, and the value of lots 
largely increased, by the elevating influence of g'arden work ; and 
we believe these children could be touched by a Sabbath lesson 
freed from all theological dogma, but full of the spirit of reverent 
love for the great All Father — the source of all life and law — and 
some of the simple, tender and direct teachings of the carpenter 
of Galilee on our mutual relations and the oneness of man and 
his Creator. 

And we are equally sure that primary lessons in botany and 



40 GEORGE JUNIOR REPUBLIC. 

the varied sciences connected with soil, seed, cHmate, fertilizers, 
etc., could be imparted in the garden schools that would be of 
deepest interest and begin that taste for study and for knowing 
things that would make the later study in school a matter of 
delight and interest, instead of the dull burden of abstract study 
of the conventional school text books. 

SELF-GOVERNMENT. 

More than half a century ago J. G. Holland wrote out the 
theory of self-government for pupils in school in his charming 
story of "Arthur Bonicastle:" The idea was too great and good 
to be adopted at once, but, like all advanced ideas, had to wait a 
generation before its worth was fully appreciated and the needs 
of a more democratic ideal called it into use ; but now the world 
is ripe for it, and we find many schools adopting this method of 
discipline, as well as some philanthropic works like the Forward 
Movement of Chicago, which has for several years taken a large 
crowd of young children for a summer outing and adopted this 
method of maintaining discipline, with most satisfactory results. 

GEORGE JUNIOR REPUBLIC. 

The George Junior Republic was started in this way, and Las 
grown into a permanent institution. This is exactly what its 
name indicates, a republic of minors who are self-governing, and 
whose motto is "Nothing without Labor." It is made up largely 
of homeless or worse than homeless boys and girls from the 
cities. They have the usual amount of school work, and must 
work out of school hours for all their needs. They are paid in 
the coin of the Republic for their work, and, as there is no 
provision for those who are lazy, those who do not work soon 
suffer for the necessities of life, and so learn to have a wholesome 
respect for labor as well as for law. The results so far have 
been surprisingly satisfactory. How much better this than taking 
single boys or girls to lonely country homes, where everything 
is so utterly out of sym.pathy with their former environment. 

In our truant schools it has been found necessary to introduce 
hand work, and so interesting does this become that we often 



PRIMARY INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 4I 

find good boys playing truant that they may be sent there, where 
they "learn to make things with their hands." 

In schools for feeble-minded children it is often found that 
mental activity can only be aroused through the physical. So in 
our prisons frequently the first signs of an awakening of the 
mental and moral faculties come through some training of the 
physical. 

In a small denominational school a plant was put in a few 
years ago for industrial training ; but no teacher could be found 
who could or would teach the ideals of labor by example, and 
the plan was approaching failure, when a principal took charge 
from one of the agricultural colleges. He came prepared with 
overalls and blouse, and, with the genuine enthusiasm of a trained 
horticulturist and botanist, at once called for volunteers to work 
in the garden with him as a daily task. Very soon the labor 
caste which had been established was all swept away, and the 
pupils vied with each other for the privilege of working in the 
garden and shops with their favorite teacher, who had found the 
charm of skillful labor and the pride of accomplishment with 
his hands, and who had the winning spirit which comes from 
high mental culture and a love for Nature's ways, and whose 
hands had the cunning and skill with tools that made his work 
like the magic touch of the artist's pencil, a charm that is always 
attractive and always wins. 

In this school, as in all manual training schools, it was found 
that the work settled all problems of discipline. 

"Education should fit for completest living, not to create a 
Literary Aristocracy. ' ' -Herbert Spencer. 

PRIMARY INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 

In one of our Southern cities a Primary Industrial School 
for the neglected children of the factories was started as a 
philanthropy, and has proven such a success that it has been made 
a part of the public school system. These children would not 
attend the schools devoted wholly to memory cramming, but when 
the industrial training was introduced were eager to take part. 



42 CITY AND COUNTRY SCHOOLS. 

SUBURBAN CITY AND CONCENTRATED COUNTRY SCHOOLS. 

It has been sugg'ested that one much-needed change in city 
schools would be to take all the schools away from the congested 
districts into the suburbs, where every school building coidd be 
surrounded by green grass, with fresh air and ample playgrounds 
among flowers, trees and gardens ; and this would stop the 
growth of slums and slum elements, as children once used to such 
environments would never again desire or be willing to go to 
slum conditions. 

We deem this thoroughly practical, and not so radical a change 
as the rapidly extending system of concentrating the country 
schools in one central school, carrying the children to and from 
school at public expense, and the advantages immensely more. 
In both cases there would be plenty of room to introduce complete 
manual training. The street cars can carry pupils at a cent each 
at a profit ; and children so educated would surely become a "new 
and superior order of people," and by adding such a system of 
"Summer Garden Schools" as we have described, would be one 
of the most valuable and important features and beneficial portions 
of our regular common school course. 



AGRICULTURAL TRAINING. 



"Our agricultural interests, either in view of their domestic 
value, or as exports, are the most important interests of the nation, 
yet they are least perfectly developed of any," 

— Prest. Geo. T. Powell. 

"No nation will long survive the decay of its Agriculture." 

— Thos. Jefferson. 

"The strength and glory of a nation depends on its tillers of 

the soil" 

—Thos. Jefferson. 

Not only is Agriculture one of the most important, but its 
study and practice is one of the most inspiring and elevating to 
man's moral nature, and the great and historic characters, from 
Moses' time till today, have come from the discipline and spiritual 
uplift of some type of agricultural pursuit. 

One of the most interesting studies and movements along the 
line of progress in advancing industrial culture and agricultural 
science has been started in the States of Minnesota and Wisconsin. 
In the formicr State primary and some advanced study of scientific 
agriculture is being started for all the common schools, the effort 
having been initiated by the able head of the agricultural depart- 
ment of the State University, Professor Hayes, who has also 
presented a most practical plan for concentrating from ten to 
fifteen adjacent school districts into one high school of agriculture 
and allied sciences. And as up-to-date farming requires a general 
knowledge and ability in several of the handicraft trades, such 
schools will naturally need to teach a variety of mechanic arts 
for complete work for their agricultural pupils, and they will 
soon see the need of making provision for the boys and girls from 
the villages and towns, who will also need a wide variety of 
industrial education, with the fundamental training in some 
phases of agricultural science. And the natural evolution of 
the best methods will naturally bring more or less of the self- 

43 



44 



AGIIICL'LTU]IAL TllAINING. 



supporting principle into use, if, as we are fully persuaded, it is 
the best and most scientific method for gaining an industrial 
training. 

BUSY HAPPY BOYS OF THE "SUMMER GARDEN SCHOOL." 




The suggestion is one of great promise for the future, and 
is in effect being adopted in several States, and will no doubt 
become as universal as any branch of the public system of 
instruction in the age of the new democracy that is to be. 



AGEICULTUEAL TRAINING. 45 

This is but the first step in the upward way to equip the 
youth of the coming age more completely for higher and yet 
higher attainments in "complete living." 

President Patterson of the Cash Register Company makes the 
very pertinent suggestion that at present there are about 98 per . 
cent of the pupils leave the schools with no training at all in any 
branch of agriculture, when the percentage should be reversed, 
or, better still, that no pupils should be allowed to leave without 
thorough knowledge in some branch of agricultural lore — the 
working together with God in nature to produce the needs of life. 
In Wisconsin the Superintendent of Schools, Professor Harvey, 
was sent to Europe to study particularly what could be learned 
of their methods for agricultural education. He came home with 
startling reports of the much larger number of agricultural 
colleges, in proportion to the inhabitants, than in this country ; 
and the State, at his suggestion, has started a move to have an 
agricultural school for every county, the plan being to have the 
State bear one-half the expense and the county the other half. 

Professor Harvey's bulletin containing his report of agricul- 
tural and industrial education in Europe, and outlining his plans 
for progress here, is very inspiring reading for any one who 
hopes for highest progress in the fundamental art of rearing a 
high grade of citizenship. 

Alaibama, New York and some other States are already 
moving in the same direction, and a bill has been presented in 
Congress for the government aid in furthering the work so 
hopeful for the future. 

Not only is agriculture the most important industry in a 
material sense for the nation, but the effects of its study and 
practice on the moral and spiritual nature are the most elevating 
and inspiring, and have always developed the greatest and 
strongest characters in the world's history, and therefore should 
be considered the most important science in an educational 
curriculum. 

And whenever the educational system of the nation is reformed 
to the degree of having for its main purpose, its sole aim, the 
developm.ent of the highest average of citizenship in mental and 



ij.6 AGEICULTURAL TEAINIKG. 

spiritual attainments, then will the teaching of some phase of 
agricultural lore be considered as fundamental as the mutiplica- 
tion table. And for this we plead with every organized 
agricultural mterest or labor union ; it is the one thing that each 
and every child should be taught of necessity as a portion of the 
A, B, C in his training for the duties of citizenship. The least 
that any one should be at all satisfied with for any child of city 
or slum would be a course in the Summer Garden Schools or 
the Agricultural High School, as suggested by the practical 
Professor Hayes. 

In this age of research, if agriculture is to retain its proper 
place as the most exalted and exalting vocation, most attractive 
to brightest minds, it must be made scientific and the charms of 
all technical knowledge brought to bear to make it the choice of 
the liberally educated. It must be so changed that not a suspicion 
of labor caste taint can attach to the educated farmer. 

Edward Bellamy once truly said that in no other line of large 
staple production is there such a lack of system and science, nor 
such a waste of efifort. If there were no other reason for the 
change to a free universal system of Industrial Education, this 
alone would be sufficient. 

In the new and better social order which is surely coming, the 
new "Triumph of Democracy," of which the demand for imiversal 
free industrial training is but one of the many indications, there 
will be new and dominating social and educational standards, as 
far above the present as the present is above those of the past 
feudal times, when the men and women of the estate were con- 
sidered as only a portion of the appurtenances of the barons' estab- 
lishment — handy things to have for use or for defense, but with 
scant rights to be respected, and no mental culture to be thought 
of as belonging to their caste. 

And only when, as suggested by President Patterson, ninety- 
eight per cent of all the children have a fairly full course in some 
line of agricultural study, some taste of skillful gardening or 
floriculture, some technical knowledge of animal life, a botanic 
study of food plants, a course in the wonders of bacteria, both 
useful and destructive, of the chemistry of soils, foods, fertilizers. 



THE ELEVATION OF THE RACES. 47 

grains and vegetable growths, skill along some lines of horticul- 
ture, and a general knowledge of the varied fruits and how to 
improve and propagate them and adapt them to various localities 
of markets and demands, of preserving and selecting, shipping 
and selling — only when all these widely varied branches of these 
most interesting and charming fields of intellectual growth are 
fully taught in schools open and free as air to every boy and girl 
of this Republic, only then may we claim, that necessary progress 
along this line has come to an approximate end, or even to a fairly 
well developed system. 

And as we learn that it took nearly fifty years of persistent 
agitation in the days of our fathers to fully establish the idea 
that the common school was a necessity, so may we be willing to 
work as long as needful for this next great step upward and 
forward along the same general pathway. 

THE ELEVATION OF THE RACES. 

For the elevation of the races nothing has proven so valuable 
as agricultural training, and, radical as the proposition may seem, 
it is our conviction, after much study and many visits to different 
schools, continuing for weeks in several cases, that it would be 
better for both races if every school for both Indian and colored 
pupils were closed where no industrial training is combined with 
literary studies, and ten times as much aid should be given to 
industrial schools, and that in the South only those schools con- 
ducted in this way are of any value in solving the race problem. 
All others lead away from the ideal of the dignity of labor, and 
in quite too many cases create a useless, idle and often a vicious 
class, who have learned to imitate the vices of the dominant race, 
but do not emulate their virtues, the uplift of skilled labor is 
wanting, and education only creates wants that the hands have 
not acquired the skill to provide. 

At Hampton, Tuskegee and many other like places we get the 
true spirit that uplifts and prepares foe the active duties of life 
and the higher enjoyments of an advanced civilization. 

The very fact that the colored race have social, economic 
and political aspirations and ambition, whatever of ridiculous and 



4S THE ELEVATIOK OF THE RACES. 

vexing embarrassments it may bring temporarily, should after 
all be cause for hope and congratulation for the future. For 
any country to have a large element with no hopes, no aims, no 
ambitions for progress and betterment and no ambition for a 
share in governmental functions, would mean a mass of inertia 
most dangerous and detrimental. 

Professor DuBoies, and Colonel Graves, and all who would 
defend the purely hterary type of schools for race elevation, will 
do well to ponder carefully our main proposition that one of the 
essential contrasts betvv^een a true Christian or scientific civilization 
and the pagan type is largely in the widely varying concepts in 
regard to labor and its sacred office in race development. 

If the great Froebel's concept was correct, and man is a 
creative being, that this is his highest attribute, that all civilization 
is but the creative labor of man, then when this fundamental 
proposition is properly apprehended, the best method for all 
school systems will settle itself, and men will needs be educated 
to bring this attribute to highest perfection. 

Professor DuBoies, while ably accentuating the importance of 
a high degree of training for teachers, entirely begs the question 
as to which type of school is best for race development, in his 
claim that all the industrial schools have some teachers from the 
literary institutions. He cannot but be aware of the patent fact 
that the superior industrial schools have been vastly fewer than 
the others, and also of the other equally plain proposition that, 
according to the universal and dominant law of humanity, to try 
to imitate those who are supposed to be above in social standing 
has naturally led the bright and ambitious young colored people 
to the schools mostly patronized by the white people, and both 
have drifted into the idea that an education means mainly 
memorizing from text books, and a college education means escape 
from the drudgery of labor, as it has come to be understood. 
And there can be no question but in spite of the lack of the best 
methods, these bright and ambitious young people, when trans- 
planted to the more correct atmosphere of Hampton, Tuskegee 
et al., will soon catch the spirit of the place and become valuable 
teachers, but that is no proof whatever that they would not have 



THE ELEVATION OF THE RACES. 



49 



been better if trained more correctly from the first ; and if labor 
had been made scientific, and skill in it taught as an accomplisl 
ment instead of a drudgery, they and all the teachers an 
preachers of the race would have exerted a much higher an 
more beneficial influence on their struggling people. 

The able and a.ccomplished chancellor of a great university, 
who declared he had learned three trades since he was a college 
educator, and found in the shop w^ork his best mental recupera- 
tion, and a stronger executive power for his daily work in class 
room, is a far stronger proof of all we plead for as the most 
powerful aid in race progress and the only hope of the colored 
races coming to any self-reliant, self-respecting position in 

CIVILIZATION. 

No doubt Professor DuBoies will repel our suggestion of the 
best type of theological seminary being founded on the model 
set by St. Paul as the kind essentially needed for race uplift; it 
was rejected by the arrogant Roman aristocracy of the time, to 
whom it was so repugnant that they took o& his head to stop 
the heresy, and degraded the ministry into an alms-taking, non- 
working class, from which it has never fully recovered. 

If the in many respects able pleader for the good of "black 
men's souls" will carefully study the matter out, he will come 
to the same conclusion as the great, if not the greatest, friend 
of his race, "that a lot of the facts we learn in school are not 
so," and must be "unlearned in life," and much that he has 
learned in the so-called "best white schools" is not the best for 
the white race, and utterly fatal to the elevation of his own race ; 
who no doubt must travel the same or a similar pathway as all 
other races, and let the hand lead the brain in the upward 
pathway, as Nature decrees. 

We will dare suggest that very likely it may yet prove best 
for his race to grow into a high social state, to follow the essential 
rule for the boy in learning to swim, to go by themselves and 
WORK out the problem unaided by the dominant race, who will 
no doubt always hold them to a lower caste socially and politically, 
and will always exploit them economically. Of one thing we 
may be certain : that to teach the head the desire for better style 



50 DRIFTING INTO TWO CLASSES. 

in living and more ambition along- any line, and not teach the 
hands how to satisfy the aroused ambition, is of all things most 
cruel. And the preachers or teachers of the weaker race, whose 
example or teaching is tainted with the ideals of a labor caste, 
are surely doing them an injury; while those who teach a self- 
reliant, self-respecting, self-supporting, industrial independense 
are but following the lessons of the great social reformer, St. 
Paul, whose efforts were along very similar lines. 

Professor DuBoies speaks of "Industrial Education" as 
"adapted to needs of artisans," and of the "long-established and 
approved methods for the education of the white race," apparently 
oblivious of the fact that in the minds of a vast and constantly 
increasing number of people a handicraft education is best for 
all learned professions, and the '^long-established methods of 
education" have been heartily condemned by many most scien- 
tific minds, and are like most all systems and customs "long 
established," away behind the progress of a scientific age, and 
only held in place by tlic law of inertia. 

DRIFTING INTO TWO CLASSES. 

The colored people of the South seem to be drifting into "wo 
sharply defined classes. One class, represented by the graduates 
of such schools as Hampton and Tuskegce, proud of the skill 
of their hands and what they can do that is useful, are at work 
trying to win respect and consideration by their merits and 
progress ; while another class, led by the graduates of purely 
literary schools and represented by the mob spirit shown at 
Tloston, where earnest, candid argument was met by noise, con- 
fusion and some still more disreputable methods, is aggressively, 
and sometimes insolently, demanding social and political recog- 
nition. And from this, class, quite as much to be pitied as blamed 
for a false ideal gained by imitating a false standard, comes the 
class that are the clog and hindrance to their normal progress. 

If they ever get a colored republic or separate state by 
themselves, it is the former class alone who will make its success 
possible, while one of the heaviest burdens will be the latter 
class — from those who know more of Greek than of the laws of 



DKIFTIKG INTO TWO CLASSES. 5 1 

mechanics, more of Latin than of Uie science of agriculture, and 
who, through unfortunate imitation of the dominant race, have 
imbibed the ideal suggested by Herbert Spencer, that the object 
of an education is to produce a "literary aristocracy" rather than 
to fit for "'complete living." If, instead of all this, the colored 
preachers and teachers will but study and imitate the example 
of the great preacher and social reformer, St. Paul, who knew 
and taught the essential nobility of skilled labor as the foundation 
of a Christian civilization, the woist phases of the race problem 
will soon be solved. 

In most all the Southern towns is to be found the worst 
menace to law and progress in the large class of fairly educated 
young colored men, who can write a good hand and have a fair 
education from text books, but who have imbibed the ideal of 
the disgrace of labor, and, having no trade, can only work at 
the commonest and least paid industries ; and, as they have also 
imbibed the idea that they must gain their living by their wits, 
they drift into crime as naturally as ducks intO' water ; and from 
this class comes much if not all of the active prejudice against 
Northern-supported colored schools, while the universal testimony 
is that those who have trades are the thrifty, law-abiding class, 
whose progress is a hope for the race. 

The many colored preachers who have thus imitated the 
unscientific and un-Christian aversion to skilled labor from the 
type of schools they have attended, are powerless to come into 
any helpful touch with the unfortunate loafing class, and thus 
their influence is neutralized where most needed. 

"These hands ministered to my necessities, and to those with me." 

—Saint Paul. 

TEACHING BY EXAMPLE. 

The greatest criticism we would make upon our agricultural 
colleges and schools, where wide industrial training has been 
introduced, is that the teachers who are in the literary department 
do not teach labor, and vice versa, and thus exemplify to their 
]iu])ils the proper relation between mental culture and pride in 
skilled labor. 



52 PREVENTION OF CRIME. 

At the great industrial center and school at East Aurora the 
Greek professor is the blacksmith, and has the same prido. in 
his work at the forge that he has in his translations. In one 
school with which we are familiar the professor of agriculture 
not only superintends the raising of the products, but also 
teaches the pupils the chemistry o-f the same, and then insists 
that the pupils shall know how to cook them. But we know 
of but few such instances. 

That such a revolutionary change in our whole educational 
system must be a matter of growth will be admitted ; but that 
it need be a, matter of slow growth we emphatically deny. The 
need and demand for it is too great and immediate, and the first 
steps have already been taken to such an extent as to assure its 
future. 

PREVENTION OF CRIME. 

"Universal Industrial training will be self sustaining to the 

state in the prevention of crime." ., , -n. , . 

—John Ruskm. 

The civilization of the North stands aghast at the vast waste 
of child life in our cities and the enormous cost of crime that 
comes from neglected children whom we know could be educated 
into good and profitable citizens ; and this alone is sufficient 
motive for the change that will save this vast outlay for crime 
and its results by guiding the hands of the young towards useful, 
skilled, creative labor that will aid in both mental and moral 
uplift. The case here is urgent. It brooks no delay. One 
eminent writer sets the cost of preventable crime and accessories 
in one city at forty million dollars per year, and fully six hundred 
millions for the whole country. What would not this vast sum 
do in reasonable, scientific educational prevention, in making of 
the street waifs skilled, intelligent, thrifty citizens? 

A hundred George Junior Republic schools filled with the 
neglected children of the slums would be as economical as 
patriotic in educating, the waifs toward useful citizens. The 
Minnesota Reform School believes that an average of over eighty 
per cent of its graduates become good citizens. And these, it 



THE SLOW AND UNPEECOCIOUS. 



53 



will be remembered, are of the bad boys sent to be reclaimed, and 
industry is one of the main dependences to reform them, while it 
is claimed that from sixty to seventy per cent of the average village 
and city boys who have no industrial training go to the bad. 

The civilization of the Southland has an equally or still more 
ominous question in the race problem, with a vast illiterate 
contingent of poor whites, all of whom stand as a portentous 
menace to the future, but who may all be turned into useful, 
thrifty and law-abiding citizens, if only we v/ill begin their uplift 
in the v/ay God and Nature intended, by developing their hands 
in useful skill and letting the mental growth follow, as it naturally 
will, if we will but reverse our present "rude and undeveloped" 
system and give that the first place which Nature gives to every 
child born into this world — the desire and ability to learn its first 
lessons through its hands, 

THE SLOW AND UNPRECOCIOUS, 

"The strength of a chain is measured by its weakest link." 

Under the present system it is usual at an early age to condemn 
to bread winning and factory slavery those pupils who seem in 
any way slow or deficient in power or inclination to acquire 
through the memory -cramming process the conventional type of 
education. This is a particularly great wrong both to society 
and the individual ; for, if it be admitted that in the development 
of a higher form of average democracy is the pathway of true 
progress, then should the slow and less ably endowed, the weak 
and simple, have extra pains taken to develop what intellectual 
faculties they have to the highest possible point — not only to 
enhance their value to the state and to society, their productive 
abilities, but also that their children may have the heredity of a 
better parentage ; and we dare claim that, among any given one 
thousand of the so-called "poor scholars" who are prematurely ' 
doomed to an early slavery at bread winning, with the minimum 
of mental training and with no hand training at all, in any 
thousand of such will be found many capable of becoming men 
and women of mark, of genius, if thev could be led alone: to a 



54 THE SLOW AND UN PRECOCIOUS. 

few years later age and have the advantages of hand culture and 
a chance to study mechanic arts or industrial training in some of 
its branches which are adapted to their peculiar mental drift. 

It is a well attested fact that many men and women of 
exceptional ability are late and slow in giving any evidence of 
strong mental power, and may never do so until some mechanical 
or technical study, some form of handicraft training, brings to 
the surface unexpected talents of a high order. 

In this manner Vv^ill colleges and universities based on the 
plan of alternate study and work, and that shall hold pupils until 
years of maturity, be of most inestimable value, both in creating 
a higher average of intelligence among all, but also (and of 
greatest importance) in finding and bringing out many men and 
women of rare merit and usefulness, who, under the present 
system, are almost totally lost to the world and doomed, like the 
flowers of the desert, to bloom unseen and unknown. We are 
fully persuaded, if there were no other reason for the demand for 
a self-supporting system of schools for higher education, that 
this alone would be ample for a most comprehensive efifort to 
establish such in every county in the whole land, to promote the 
higher average of the citizenship by cultivating the slow and 
unprecocious and by developing the latent geniuses from those 
who only come to their full powers at a later age. 

"Had Caesar, Napoleon, Columbus, Shakespeare, Sir Isaac New- 
ton, Adam Smith, or Herbert Spencer been assigned by fate the lack 
of an education, or the dreary toil of an Irish bog laborer, what 
would their native talents availed?" 

—Henry G-eorge. 

ELEVATING LABOR VS. DEGRADING DRUDGERY. 

"What thy hands find to do, do it with thy might." 

—The Bible. 

Convinced as we are that true labor is a God-like attribute, 
exalting and ennobling when normally exercised, we are also 
aware that it can be so imposed upon men as to become 



ELEVATING LABOR VS. DEGEADING DRUDGERY. 55 

drudgery, enslaving and demoralizing in the extreme. Booker 
Washington tersely express'ed this when he said, "To work, to 
ivcrk, TO WORK (for one's ovv^n) is the height of Christian 
civilization ; but to be worked, to be worked, to be worked ( for 
another's profit) is the barbarism of slavery." 

William Morris says it is to put into all labor the ideals of 
the artist, to have all possible skill, knowledge and intelligence 
in regard to the correlated sciences, and to feel the joy of working, 
to contribute to the needs of the world ; in the effort done in 
this spirit, even the digg'ing of a sewer may become a joyful 
service and a means of spiritual growth to the worker. To know 
how to excel and to take pride in superior accomplishments 
makes the whole difference between drudgery and art. We see 
this difference between scientific agriculture and the drudgery of 
ignorant farming; and this wide contrast may be seen in every 
vocation and in every form of labor ; and for this quality of 
mental uplift of the workers there is no other way but to develop 
the mental powers, cultivate the artist spirit, and at the same time 
make skillful the hands that do the world's work. The result 
will be such an average of high moral purpose, joy and efficiency 
as the world has never yet seen. "To mix brains with our hand 
work" is but a homely expression for this wide contrast between 
the labor that blesses and the drudgery that degrades ; and the 
man or woman who knows all the scientific relations of the 
material manipulated by his or her hands has a joy in work to 
be had in no other way. And if to this be added the joy of 
serving a person or a cause, then the highest joy of earth may 
come from labor, which otherwise might be drudgery of basest 
deg^ree. ^ 

With modern forces for production, it is unquestionable that 
four to six hours of labor each day would supply the world with 
a plenitude of luxuries such as princes now might envy ; and 
this amount of labor would be only what is needful for healthful 
exercise, and, when done with proper aim and method, would 
give a moral and spiritual uplift unequaled by any other means. 
All men do not now have the opportunity to work. With 
shorter hours and the worker receiving his due proportion of 



56 ELEVATING LABOR VS. DEGRADING DRUDGERY. 

product, all could be employed. All this should be included in 
a new system of education that shall propose the training of head, 
hands and heart as a trinity of equal importance in the building 
of character and in soul grov/th. 

With this as the motive for reorganizing our whole educational 
system, we may confidently look forward to such an evolution of 
the "religion of democracy," to the development of such a high 
average of citizenship as the world has never seen, with the 
growth of all the grandest ideals of an international unity of spirit 
and interest among men as shall make the hideousness of war a 
thing unthinkable and unheard of again. 

With such an average citizenship as we shall have when a full 
industrial college and university course is given freely to every 
child, we may be sure such a social order will be developed as 
will make the adoption of a short working day imperative, and 
the people, cultured in art and science, will develop a perfection 
of human society such as has only been dreamed of by the poets 
of past ages. The millennium epoch may be surely looked for 
with unquestioning faith. 

This will be the age spoken of by Ferguson when "the 
university will come to all free as air and glorious as sunshine," 
and the religion of democracy have its most holy accomplishment; 
and all this may begin its coming tomorrow, if we will. 

"It is unspeakably pernicious to think or speak of the develop- 
ment of humanity, as stationary or completed. ' ' 

Troebel. 



PART 11. 



That with student labor alone, an industrial education plant has 
been built worth over half a million dollars, and at the same time 
the students have acquired a much better education than if the plant 
had been previously prepared, and they had come with money to pay 
their way thro a conventional course, is the second greatest achieve- 
ment in importance in the educational history of America. 

Equipment vs. Endowment. 

"Education is the most essential interest of the State." 

—Wendell Phillips. 

The time has come v/hen seminaries, colleges and universities 
should no longer depend upon endowments for support, but 
rather upon industrial equipment. During the past year the 
enormous sum of fifty to seventy millions of dollars has been put 
into endowment funds for facilities for higher education for the 
comparatively few ; and, vast as is the purchasing power of this 
great sum, it will scarcely produce a ripple in the educational 
history or progress of the nation, and will have no appreciable 
effect on the democratic progress of education for the masses, 
where help and progress are most needed ; while, if even one- 
quarter of this had been put into the equipment of self-supporting 
industrial schools for all, it would have marked a new and distinct 
epoch in educational advance and set a new pace for the world's 
progress as noteworthy and as grand as did the great step of the 
heroic fathers of the Republic when they established the collective 
ideal of the common school for the benefit of every boy and girl 
in the nation — a movem^ent that required fifty years of vigorous 
agitation to establish. 

This greatest achievement of our democratic fathers helped 
forward the evolution of the race more than it had moved in 
centuries. The establishment of a system of free industrial 

57 



58 EQUIPMENT VS. ENDOWMENT. 

self-supporting schools and colleges for all will be a step of equal 
if not greater importance in accelerating race progress and the 
advance of democratic civilization. 

There are many grave objections to the whole plan of endow- 
ments : the system has had its day. It is time for something 
more democratic and not so tainted with pagan abuses. The 
whole system of endowed educational institutions is a relic of 
the age and concept that a few only should be provided with 
educational facilities, and that the vast majority must toil in 
ignorance to produce the wealth needed for the favored few. It 
is an utterly paganish concept and system, out of date and place 
in a democratic and progressive age. 

An equipment of two hundred thousand dollars in farm, shop, 
factory and working material for a self-supporting school will 
care for more pupils than a conventional college having a full 
million-dollar endowment. 

The system of education under an industrially equipped 
school will be a correct one, not a concession to false ideals, but 
dominated by the true democratic spirit of self-help and perfectly 
adapted to cultivating the creative attributes of the pupil. 

Then, too, a school depending upon endowments must always 
be more or less handicapped by the moral taints attaching to the 
moneys received, as were the schools founded by Captain Kidd 
from the proceeds of his peculiar economic system, even as later 
methods have tainted and compromised the schools dependent 
upon them for support. 

Again, the endowment system locks up enormous amounts of 
money in bonds, mortgages, etc., away from active creative 
channels in commerce and industry, and places the influence of 
the school on the undemocratic and unscientific side of continuing 
high interest rates — always an undesirable condition and adverse 
to democratic progress. 

One noted school, which was founded on most radical ideals, 
has been so tainted with this spirit as to have won a most 
unenviable reputation as a stickler for high rates of interest and 
a merciless forecloser of farm mortgages — a most unworthy 
reputation for the moral influence of a great educational institu- 



EQUITMENT VS. ENDOWMENT. 59 

tion, which should be a radical leader along the line of true 
democracy ; for along' that line is the only true ideal of social 
progress. 

In well equipped industrial schools the strength and virility 
of teachers will be best conserved. Teachers who devote them- 
selves to mental training only, have a very severe tax upon nerve 
force and personal magnetism, and vast numbers have broken 
down before their best years of matured service came, under this 
strain of nerve effort ; while in an industrial school they v/ould 
often have the restful change from brain to hand work, which is 
a natural recuperation, and in this manner retain for a much 
longer period the powers of nerve and magnetic forces so 
necessary for best success in leading and molding young lives. 

And last, but really most important of all, by working a 
portion of the time each day v>^ith pupils, they are setting the 
example and social standard of the union of culture with skill 
in creative labor or useful service, which is one of the essentials 
in a scientific civilization, and without which no social state can 
be made progressive or permanent. 

Were there no other reasons, the latter alone would justify 
the change ; and we feel sure the coming reform and the highest 
ideals of progress are coming from and through the change from 
Endowments to that of Equipments. The one who demonstrates 
the practicability of a well equipped industrial school to be 
self-supporting will do a grand work for humanity and write his 
name large as a benefactor of his kind. And philanthropists who 
will equip such schools, or help to do so, will win renown as 
helpers of their race, and erect a monument of more lasting 
material and greater glory than any marble or bronze placed for 
mere show. 

We are sure there are many of the smaller colleges, now 
struggling with inadequate endowments or income, whose useful- 
ness would be enhanced a hundredfold if they could and would 
change all or a portion of their endowments into an industrial 
equipment for self-support from their own productive labor. And 
they would then be in line with the rapidly advancing demands of 
the people, who wish for the best type of a liberal or complete 



6o EQUIPMENT VS. ENDOWMENT. 

education, and in line with the ideals suggested by Herbert 
Spencer's able address, and more fully defined in the philosophy 
of the seer^ Froebel. 

We also know that many philanthropists and prominent 
business men, when, their attention is called to these ideas, are 
much more ready to help such schools, for any race or any section 
than the schools for mental training alone. 

We deem, it patent to all why our government should aid in 
establishing such practical schools at this time, and why oiu' 
motto, "More for Schools and Less for War," should become a 
national watchword for all who have an ambition to hope for 
the time suggested by the eloquent Englishman, "when American- 
ism shall conquer the whole world ;" for we can sooner conquer 
the world with the school than with the battleship; ideas will 
penetrate deeper than rifle shot. 

Tremendously as the world has been taught to fear our 
"armor-clads" and the range of our artillery, they may yet stand 
in greater awe of the moral and mental achievements of a nation 
of college-trained people. A perfected democracy will much 
sooner subdue the world than the best armaments ; exalted ideas 
will win and hold the allegiance of the coming peoples of all lands 
longer and better than the most perfect examples of brute force. 

When we decree that every child of this Republic shall have 
a full college course, and a college course far more complete and 
thorough than any heretofore given, it will thrill the world with 
a new expectancy of lofty achievement, as yet unknown in the 
history of the race. It will, indeed, be an example of "Trium- 
phant Democracy" that will set a new pace for the highest ideals 
of an ambitious generation. 



THE UNIVERSITY 



AN INTELLECTUAL AND INDUSTRL\L CENTER. 

When in all modern process, from making a garden to a 
locomotive, there is a continual demand for the highest and most 
scientific study and skill, what could be more appropriate than 
that the University should be a great center of industrial activity 
where the students can work their way through the course of 
mental and hand culture — each a corrollary of the other — and 
then if they wish to remain in the atmosphere of learning, or to 
carry forward some post-graduate course of investigation, can 
still work on in their chosen vocation and enjoy the social privi- 
leges of the place, with the possibilities of self-supporting labor 
and mental ripening all provided for and open for their main- 
tenance? Is not this whole ideal intensely practical and possible 
of attainment? 

THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT YET LIVES. 

When the world is ready for any great advance in achievement 
in any line, the prophecy of the coming change will be felt in 
many and far separate places, at about the same time. When 
the world was ready to cast off the curse of human slavery 
the impulse was felt from Russia to San Domingo, from England 
and France to the United States, at about the same moment of 
historic time. When the world was ready for a great advance 
in labor-saving machinery, men of all sorts were found whittling 
from wood, models of sewing machines and reapers in man^ 
places in many countries at about the same time, with no previous 
knowledge of each other's efforts, or why the inspiration came 
to them at the time. 

So has it been in this matter of a revolutionary change in the 
methods of our educational system. We ourselves thought when 
in 1868 we penned our first cnnception of an industrial college, 

61 



62 THE UNIVERSITY. 

with its own plant, to be partially or quite self-supporting, and 
that should convey a better quality of mental discipline than the 
conventional college, some of whose graduates had deeply im- 
pressed us with the fact of their unpreparedness for life, that we 
could flatter our egotism on being the first, or one of the very 
first, Vi'ho had conceived the progressive plan ; but we have since 
learned of many others who had come to essentially the same 
thought and had seen the need and value of training the hands 
and brain at the same time, and that each was a necessary portion 
of the needful training for life ; and all this with no knowledge 
of each other, nor any knowledge of the writings of the great 
men who had been moved by the same prophetic spirit. And 
today there are hundreds who deeply feel that the change is now 
imminent and must come as soon as the needful men and methods 
can be evolved. 

The great -souded man* who has already taken the first practical 
steps to introduce to Congress and to Legislatures bills for putting 
the movement into legal form, was at work preaching" the gospel 
and stirring the thoughts of many in his wide acquaintance to see 
the great need of the movement, and now it is only waiting the 
power of combined numbers to become enacted into laws in the 
nation and in the several States that shall make it as w^ell an 
established custom as the common school has become, which in 
its inception took a full generation of most energetic agitation 
before it was adopted by the several States of the then small and 
struggling beginnings of this now mighty nation, which can 
waste more each year in tawdry ornamentations than the whole 
thing will cost, and where the cost of preventable crime is more 
than the total assessed value of the property of the fathers at the 
time they took this great step. 

CAN COLLEGES BE MADE SELE-SUPPORTING ? 

"The grandest achievements of the race are those that have 
been proved impossible." 

— Jas. L. Hughes. 

* See Appendix. 



COLLEGES SELF-SUPPORTING. 63 

To most of oiir readers the above question will immediately 
present itself, and in answering it the mental evolution will, no 
doubt, in most cases, follow about the same lines of those of an 
eminent and veteran educator when first presented with the 
proposition of free universal industrial training as the next 
step in educational progress and an essential in social evolution. 

He at once assented to the value and importance of the union 
of hand and head culture for all as vastly desirable, and to the 
idea tliat the time is ripe for the movement and that it .would 
pay in various ways. In prevention of crime, he admitted it 
would be most supremely efficient, and that it would produce a 
citizenship of remarkably increased power as wealth producers, 
and after careful thought he declared, "Whether it can be wholly 
self-sustainmg or not is unimportant, quite incidental. We need 
such a system of universal training for all the people, at any cost 
to the state, to keep up with the needs and demands of social 
growth ; but it seems chimerical to expect it can be made fully 
self-sustaining and not hinder its fullest usefulness as a general 
system for scientific and literary study." 

After a few weeks of study upon the plans and possibilities 
of a system of self-support, he declared his full conviction that 
not only could industrial schools for pupils of fifteen or over be 
made fully self-sustaining, but that they could be made to pay 
a fair dividend on the needed capital for equipment, and at the 
same time impart a quality of education far above that of the 
average college or university that adhered to the old process of 
mind discipline, to the total neglect of training the hands — now 
so popular among those who have indulgent friends to pay their 
bills ajid help them to attain that kind of education whose chief 
accomplishment is often, as Spencer declared, to create a type 
of "literary aristocracy," of but little use in preparation for the 
higher ideals of complete living. 

Another educator, of international reputation, declared the 
system could be made perfectly practical and in every way 
desirable, and added that in his own school many pupils now gain 
complete support by working three hours per day five days in 
the week, and eight hours on Saturday, and this with no 



64 COLLEGES SELF-SUPPORTING. 

detriment, but rather a decided advantage to their progress and 
efficiency in the academic courses ; and all this with no organized 
system to assist the pupils to most effectual means of labor, and 
they obliged to pay retail prices for everything needed, or from 
four to six times as much as the actual labor cost if produced in 
a plant established as a working portion of the school. 

This is a most important factor, not usually understood by 
those who only think casually on the subject. 

According to the published reports of the United States Census 
Bureau, and confirmed by the Commissioner of Labor, the labor 
cost of the average products is only about sixteen per cent of the 
price at which they are sold at retail. As many of the products 
of the school plant would not be produced quite as cheaply as in 
commercial factories, although much better in quality, it may be 
safe to estimate a labor cost of one-fourth the prices usually 
paid by teachers and pupils. 

We see at once that if students can earn the minimum wage of 
only ten to twenty cents per hour, and only work twenty to 
twenty-four hours per week, they can earn a sum that will mean 
self-support, even though they pay retail prices for everything, 
and be more than self-supporting when the necessities of life can 
be obtained at the actual labor cost. In this way the cost of 
living for teachers will also be greatly reduced. 

We deem it only necessary to refer to the well known facts 
in regard to many of our agricultural colleges, our many trade 
and industrial schools of various kinds, and to the well known 
schools of Hampton and Tuskegee — in all of which no effort has 
been made or suggested to fully accomplish entire self-support, 
but where one-fourth to two-thirds of the running expenses have 
been equaled by the productive value of the work of the schools — 
to prove be}ond the possibility of question that when the effort 
is really and earnestly made to establish schools of entire self- 
support, it can be done by only carrying a little further along a 
system already an established success and of most uniform- 
beneficial results to the quality of mental equipment acquired in 
all these schools. 

In all our modern colleges are a few brave boys and girls 



COLLEGES SELF-SUPPORTING. 65 

working their way through with no systematized method to 
reduce the labor to a minimum of time and effort, but, often 
under the greatest difficulties and disadvantages, these brave 
students work on and pay their own way, getting a minimum for 
their labor and paying a maximum of profit on all they have to 
buy ; and these self-supporting students average among the very 
highest, both in school and in after life. Had they the facilities 
for creating their own needs organized to make the labor both 
most productive and best adapted to teach mechanics and handi- 
craft skill and to save retail profits on all their needs, the labor 
hours could be greatly decreased and the menta.l benefits of the 
labor vastly increased. 

A volume could be filled with the heroic successes of those 
who have secured a full college and university education by all 
kinds of labor and under all varieties of adverse conditions ; and 
the higher general average of usefulness and ability of this class 
of graduates over those who have their bills paid for them will 
be generally admitted; and scarce any one will deny that, if a 
system of hand training and mechanical education had been an 
essential and systematized portion of their course, the average 
of mental power Vv'ould have been still higher yet. 

The almost universal consensus of opinion among all pro- 
r^ressive educators and thinkers, the general trend of progress in 
education, is wholly towards the combining of hand and bram 
culture. The only portion of the problem we need to elucidate i» 
how with the least possible financial difficulty to get the ne^^^ 
system established where it will take its proper and needful place 
as THE UNIVERSAL SYSTEM, and thus do away forever with the 
present paganish methods, mainly adapted, as Spencer declares, 
"to establish an aristocracy of letters," wholly out of place in 
this democratic country, where all the best thought of the age is 
to advance democratic ideals and to forever do away with all the 
false and shoddy ideals of an effete aristocracy. 

To carry out this full program is an effort of just enough 
difficulty to form a charm and to arouse the enthusiasm of 
progressive teachers and furnish a motive for heroic endeavor, we 
are sure; and that the completed result will make a great historic 



66 COLLEGES SELF-SUPPORTING. 

evolutionary epoch there can be no question. Nor can there be 
any question that the time is fully ripe for the step as an important 
factor in the surging storm of social reform that is now sweeping 
the world and demanding attention from all patriotic minds. 

There has been enough accomplished in the past to prove that 
colleges and universities and other schools can be very success- 
ful!}' carried on, on an entirely self-supporting basis, as soon as 
competent, thorough-going efifort is made to develop the system 
by those who have an enthusiasm for the grand purpose of 
making a full college and university course open and free to 
every boy and girl of the land, and the added enthusiasm to make 
it a superior course to anything ever enjoyed heretofore. 

As an eminent writer says, all m.aterial advance must be 
preceded by higher intellectual and spiritual concepts and ideals. 
So does the social and economic advance, now so needful in the 
interests of peace and prosperity, wait upon this advance in 
educational matters. 

A school equipped with special facilities for best possible 
courses of both handicraft training and literary or scientific 
accomplishments v/ould have for main summer work and teaching 
the farm, with stock, dairy, gardens and all food-producing equip- 
ments possible, where the food of the school would be produced 
Jt ic^xest labor cost, and a surplus for sale at regular established 
<ett.. [ prices. 

it would have a printing plant for instruction in the art of 
print: ng and for the production of its own books and papers, and 
a svirplus to sell. 

it would have its own tannery to exemplify the trade and to 
turn the hides of the beef used into profitable product ; and the 
raw hide, worth only three to five dollars, will be worth fifty to 
one hundred when made into shoes, harness, etc. The self- 
supporting school should make enough to supply its own needs, 
and a surplus to sell at market rates. 

A small weaving and knitting outfit would enable it to furnish 
most of its own clothing at one-tenth the usual cost in labor 
time, and a surplus to sell at usual prices, making a profit to pay 
balance of teachers' salaries and incidental expenses. 



COLLEGES SELF-SUPPORTING. 6/ 

The same with furniture, implements and fixtures ; and a great 
advantage to pupils in gaining their mechanical and industrial 
training will be the naturally greater interest in creating the 
things for their own personal use, rather than in making for the 
impersonal market. It will develop habits of care, nicety and 
thoroughness of detail, which is of itself a moral lesson of vast 
importance. 

It will readily be seen that during the first years of such a 
school there will be difficulties and obstacles that will entirely 
vanish after the system is under way and the order established. 
At the beginning the pupils will not have acquired the esprit dc 
corps of the work, and will lack the facility of adapting their 
efforts to best advantage ; but as soon as a few years of successful 
progress have been made, and the system learned by those in 
attendance, then it will be found that pupils who were of little 
industrial value the first year will become of much greater value 
the second, and each year of increasing value in the productive 
labors of the school. So the extra value of the labor of juniors 
and seniors will fully ccanpensate for the lesser value of freshmen 
and sophomores. 

It has been utterly surprising how much valuable material 
has been produced even by children of ten years of age, working 
only four hours per day, in the "^Summer Garden Schools," 
"Children's Farms" and "Pingree Potato Patches." The same 
is true of the Primary Industrial and Truant Schools, where 
braiding rugs and straw, and making things of use which convey 
lessons in handicraft and have the charm of novelty, has been 
introduced. The work of pupils of the first years in school can 
be and has been made to bring some revenue ; and when pupils 
have been in such schools a year or two, where the aim is to be 
as xuearly self-sustaining as possible, they will each year become 
more productive workers ; and finally, when they enter an 
industrial college, will in the later years produce enough to make 
the full course nea.rly or quite free of outside cost. The fact 
that it will be a matter of growth is but the following out of 
evolutionary laws, and proves its naturalness. 

n so be it should be best, in order to give all students some 



68 COLLEGES SELF-SUPPORTING. 

thorough training in a variety of trades and along higher art in 
a chosen and congenial trade or industry, or to adapt the training 
to learned and special professions, if this should be found to 
require some more years for most complete and perfect develop- 
ment, this is no detriment, as it would be infinitely better for the 
majority of the young to be directly and daily under the care 
of teachers during all these formative years ; and the superior 
practical value of industrial training with the immensely better 
moral and mental equipment, coupled with the fact that it is all 
obtained with no burden to parents or the state, would make 
it a thousandfold more desirable than the shorter period for a 
m.em.ory-cramming, unpractical course, such as is now doled out 
to the unfortunate victims of a system of so-called education, 
with scarce a vestige of the "drawing out" of mental faculties in 
the whole course. 

Pupils who enter a self-supporting school at from fourteen 
to sixteen years of age cannot begin life in any possible manner 
so hopefully, so advantageously, as in a course that from its 
very nature draws out and develops thinking powers and applies 
the thinking to practical efforts of the hand. The whole effort 
of working a few hours per day to create the needful food and 
clothing, aside from its healthful, sanitary value, is most perfectly 
adapted to develop the ability to reason from cause to effect, and 
thus strengthen the logical powers now so almost totally lacking 
in so many students who have had only the memory-cramming 
process of mental growth. These are the people whose only 
philosophical analysis of a sequence is the oft-used philosophy, "It 
is because it is." 

"m|AN more precious than fine GOLD." 

If the prophetic time ever comes, when highly educated and 
ennobled manhood is considered "more precious" and desirable 
than making money or things, then will men or women who labor 
in shop, factory, store or office, not be allowed to delve more than 
six hours indoors, and will then return to the elevating charms 
of home-building, and to the gentle arts of horticulture, and gar- 
dening, and in daily touch with Nature, their hearts will become 



COLLEGES SELF-SUPPORTING. 69 

attuned to accord with the Infinite Nature, who gave the first 
"lessons in Hfe" in a garden, in the atmosphere in which only, 
man can come to his best estate. And no man or woman has 
attained his or her best, until he or she has learned the joy of 
caring for living things. 

From the garden, the trees, vines, flowers, the fruits and foods 
of our own growing, come some of the formative influences that 
' develop our best, and for all this the school of "Self-support" will 
best prepare. 

If our civilization is to be freed from every destructive taint, 
we must come to see that no aim or object of social desire is so 
great as the highest possible attainment and development of the 
average citizenship; and the present hateful haste and waste of 
rushing the young into bread-winning life all undeveloped and 
immature, to become, like the machines they tend in factory and 
shop, mere automatons, is most harmful and ultimately destructive 
to national permianence. 

Booker Washington in a recent utterance questions whether 
the industrial school can be fully self-supporting and perform 
its highest function as an educator, though admitting the high 
value of all the economic production possible. If Booker Wash- 
ington had had no other problem to solve, no work to do but to 
develop his school to the hig-hest possible usefulness with self- 
support as the only means of existence, it is very certain, with 
his ability and perseverance, his continual presence at the school 
would have been vastly useful, and neither he nor we dare say 
to what degree he would have gained success. 

But his arduous work raising the needed means to enable the 
pupils to live and study and work, while creating a plant worth 
over a half millions dollars, has in several ways been a national 
object lesson of unspeakable value. And we do not believe there 
are many advocates of purely literary education that will dare 
deny that his pupils have had a far better education for an 
advanced position in Hfe, while doing all this work, than they 
would have had, had they gone with means to pay their way 
through and had no hand training at all. The exemplification to 
the world of this lesson, the proof of the advanced ability of a 



/O COLLEGES SELF-SUPPORTING. 

representative of the race that has come through his piibhc labors, 
all together make a demonstration whose value has not been 
exceeded in importance by any phase of educational progress of 
this generation, a lesson of vastly greater importance than all the 
seventy millions that have been given for the highest advantages 
of the few who can afford to climb to the top of the university 
ladder at this time, when all the world is trembling with anxiety 
to see if democracy is to be dethroned and cast from the pinnacle 
of hope where our fathers first planted its banner. 

The whole achievements of the school, and its well known 
effects, are a standing rebuke to the system and the effects of the 
system, so roundly rebuked by Spencer and so at variance with 
the teachings and philosophy of the inspired Froebel. 

But outside his school, Hampton, the George Junior Republic, 
the Rabbi Hirsch School, the Industrial School of Berrien 
Springs, Michigan, and a very few others, there has been scarce 
arxy study given to any attempt at an approach to entire self- 
support. But, v/hile the data are fragmentary, they are full of 
encouragement. A recent and most important and hopeful effort 
has been started by that widely known and progressive manu- 
facturer, N. O. Nelson, of St. Louis, Missouri, at his great works 
at Le Claire, Illinois. After some years of careful study of the 
problem in all its phases, he has determined to begin the 
development of an absolutely self-supporting school in connection 
with his farm and large factories. 

His wide, careful study of sociology, his energy and ability 
as a business builder, coupled with his enthusiasm for this great 
attempt, and his high ideals of the practical needs of such a 
progressive move in educational methods, will all assure a careful 
but steady growth of the institution till it will be the leader in 
the new and most important advance in education of the century. 
We dare believe it is a much more important step in educational 
history than the gifts of tens of millions, for the higher education 
of the few, of the past few years. 

At Glen Ellyn, a beautiful suburb of Chicago, President Geo. 
McA. Miller has fortunately obtained a large and picturesque 
site, with some costly buildings most admirably adapted to their 



COLLEGES SELF-SUPPORTING. 7I 

use, and the co-operation of several other schools, and some valu- 
able industries with which they are already successfully develop- 
ing the first steps towards an industrial university whose ultimate 
aim is to be self-sustaining from its own productive industries and 
to stand for all that is most progressive in educational methods. 

A successful Southern college has recently come into hands 
that propose to turn it into a college of the new ideal of labor 
and study combined to exalt the ideal of the nobility of skilled 
labor and to develop the creative attribute as one of the highest 
ambitions of an intellectual life. 

It is becommg almost an every-day affair to hear of some new 
attempt at founding some school of domestic science, some 
primary industrial school, or some departure along this general 
line of hand and brain culture, as the better method of preparation 
for the higher ideals of the new century. It is all only a portion 
of the great sociological move of the age and time towards the 
higher growth of democracy as a portion of the religious progress 
that trends towards Froebel's concept that whatever helps human 
unity is of itself religious and leads to highest human exaltation. 

It will be time enough later on to decide which fulfills best 
the functions of an educator, the school supported wholly or partly 
by outside help, or the one that is wholly and entirely self- 
sustaining, with strong arguments and indications that a school 
plan can be wrought out that shall be wholly independent of any 
outside revenue, and at the same time be the most perfect and 
scientific system of education ever established, following Nature's 
own plan. And surely the wider possibilities of giving all a 
completer training will more than offset any trifling disadvan- 
tages, if there are any, of the school system that is supported by 
some outside help. Until this system is found, a large portion 
of the young will be denied a chance for a full training, and the 
state will suffer from imperfectly trained and developed citizens ; 
and from these untrained, undeveloped citizens will always come 
a large percentage of criminals whose cost to the state will be a 
drag on the progress of the age. 



Domestic Science and Service. 



One of the most perplexing labor problems in our modern 
civilization is that of domestic service in our homes, and the 
social position of all women who do any work with their hands. 
So long has the race inherited the ideals of serfdom and slavery, 
and so superficial have been our concepts of an exalted democ- 
racy, so easily have we declined from the lofty aims of the noble 
founders of the republic to the compromising ideal of a past 
paganism, yet so widespread has been the sentiment of indepen- 
dence, and self-assertion, as a portion of the "American spirit" — 
in more or less crude form — that there is, and always seems likely 
to be an "irrepressible conflict" between the maid of native blood 
and the mistress who desires a menial servitor, and very much of 
real suffering and perplexity has come to thousands of home- 
makers from want of proper help in the home and in the care of 
children, and the latter have been much injured morally, in thou- 
sands of cases, by contact with servers of low intelligence and 
vicious tendencies. 

This whole problem, difficult and perplexing as it is, will be 
vastly assisted towards a healthy solution by the universally 
higher education for which we plead, and by making of the do- 
mestic science of home keeping an art (as it really is), and 
giving to cultured skill the social regard to which it is entitled. 

Prejudice, fear and ignorance on both sides stand in the way 
of an early solution, and the only remedy likely to be attained is 
from the effects of a correct educational system that shall renew 
and exalt the true concept of an ennobling democratic realization 
of the unity of all creative labor, and the appreciation of all cul- 
ture in the home, a solution that cannot come hastily, but waits 
upon the growth of the ideal that all skilled work is an art worthy 
the ambition of any degree of native talent. 

Some most suggestive hints of what may be accomplished, are 
given by the eminent Christian Romancer in his thotful work 

72 



DOMESTIC SCIENCE AND SERVICE. 73 

entitled "Born to Serve," in wliich the contrast is sharply drawn 
between the elevating atmosphere of a home made comfortable 
and delightful by the management of a cultured, educated, effi- 
cient helper, instead of the vicious, ignorant servitor, willing to 
accept the lower caste now established in such service, and he also 
strikingly shows the beneficial effects on the children of the home, 
of association and care from a helper of real worth and cultured 
character, rather than one of superstitious ignorance and vulgar 
mind; so often now the only available type. 

A prominent educator truthfully declares that no one can per- 
manently accept a lower caste, without loss of self-respect and a 
lowering of the morals ; then how utterly unchristian, undemo- 
cratic and unpatriotic the brutal selfishness of the coterie of 
northern ladies who would curtail the school advantages of the 
young girls of their town, because forsooth with an education 
they would be unwilling to accept the lower caste of a (slave) 
servant. 

How widely in contrast to the wealthy southern lady of estab- 
lished social position, who in an able magazine article, shows that 
all democratic progress must primarily come from the ambition 
of the workers for better social recognition for merit, is the rank 
inconsistency of people who cultivate a pride for helping to do 
away with chattel slavery, while wishing to perpetuate a tyrannical 
domestic slavery and to inflict a perpetual degradation of ignor- 
ance and loss of moral uplift on their servers. Surely the essen- 
tial spirit of slavery dies hard, and Christian Democracy is but 
a name to conjure with. 

The rejection of a lower caste or menial position is a promise 
of better things for the future, and is only one of the many signs 
of the social awakening of the times, and is a promise of hope 
to all who see that the pathway of progress is always and ever 
towards the higher and still higher evolution of the ideals of 
democracy, and the true motto of progress is and always must 
be "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." The concept of all that this 
means comes slowly, but the new education that is surely coming 
will accelerate it, and the differing methods of co-operative 
housekeeping and skilled specialists, with educated minds, and 



74 DOMESTIC SCIENCE AND SERVICE. 

the more scientific division of labor, will all tend to the solution 
of this most trying of modern problems. 

The inspiring example of. a lady of most aristocratic endow- 
ments, and high position as an educator, who went with the' 
"working girls" to help organize to press for better conditions 
and a higher life, and helped her less endowed sisters by her pres- 
ence and sympathy, and in so many cases in our metropolitan 
cities, the daughters of the wealthy setting a new pace by their 
help and advice to the workers to gain a better social place, by 
united action and mental culture through a more careful study 
of the life problems in their special environment, is all along the 
line of a true solution of the problem, that can only best be solved 
by the universal complete education for which we plead. 



Self-Support the Best Educational Method. 



It is a most pertinent and important query to decide if the 
best educational accomplishment is compatible with the effort to 
make a school nearly or quite self-supporting from its own 
productive labor; whether it is best to turn all possible lessons 
in work towards producing a revenue for the living and general 
expenses of the school. The solution of the problem will largely 
depend on wdiat is the ideal for the completed course of a system. 
If its aim is to pass a given amount of text book examination, 
then we would say emphatically it is not the best system, but if 
it is to "'draw out" the pupil's deepest interest in preparation for 
all phases of life, to learn while in school what his or her manner 
of life shall be, what are the personal adaptations, and to begin 
in school the work of life and tO' learn those things that will 
m.ake the pupil a lifelong student, always alert tO' gain more of 
such information as shall not only increase eflficiency but also 
broaden the intelligence, to arouse the love of knowing things 
and to take an interest in all work done and a pride in doing the 
best possible, then we say by all means the work for self-use 
will quicken the interest and arouse ambition the best of any 
possible method. 

If, again, the object of school life is strongly towards the ideal 
of Colonel Parker, to develop the mutualistic, altruistic and 
democratic qualities ; or of Froebel's ideals, to increase and 
enlarge the creative attribute and deepen the sense of mutual 
interdependence ; where the personal interest is involved in all 
things made and planned in the school, when each article is liable 
to be owned or used or sold, and its price involved, in the con- 
scientious, thorough manner in which it is finished; when all 
these are the incentives for careful study and work to do the 
best, then is it surely the most natural and most scientific manner 
to engage the pupil's best efforts and most efifectually to draw 

75 



76 SELF-SUPPORT BEST EDUCATIONAL METHOD. 

out his best application and interest, and that means to develop 
his moral qualities, which is the highest aim possible. 

By no other means can there be such perfect sympathy 
established between pupil and teacher as when working together 
for mutual needs, and this gives the teacher the formative 
influence when helping to decide what the pupil's best adaptations 
are for a life work ; and thus is s-voided the oft most perplexing 
problem as to what to undertake, with no correct way of diag- 
nosing the direction of native talents. Surely for the vast 
majority it will be better to "work out the problem" while 
gaining the means of living and paying for all with the labor of 
the hands from day to day. 

In the new social atmosphere that would be established by a 
universal complete educational system, there would naturally be 
two ideas established that would be dominant and aggressive : 
one, to develop man's beneficent creative attribute to the highest 
and best ; the other, to change the present abnormal and de- 
structive selfishness and replace it with a constructive mutualism 
and altruism, the only traits that really build in civilisation, to 
modify or do away with the present insane rush and grab and 
greed, so expressively and properly denominated by Carlyle as 
the "hellish scramble," and which develops such qualities and 
manifestations. Dare any deny that this has gone so far from 
any correct ideal that all the form_ative influences of a new and 
most radical educational system will be required to restore a 
true democracy to its former high place in the thought of 
Americans. 

In the industrial system of today do we find so much that is 
purely paganish in that it continually sacrifices men to things and 
Isaiah's concept is reversed. "Fine gold is esteemed more 
precious than man," and men have been ruthlessly destroyed to 
produce cheapest things, and society has been dumb over the 
pagan cruelty of putting the young into factory slavery, to do 
continually one m.onotonous thing with all its dwarfing, soul and 
mind benumbing effect, from youth to age. Even in professional 
life this abnormal subdivision of labor and specialization of study 
and practice of what may be hoped to pay best in a material sense 



SELF-SUPPORT BEST EDUCATIONAL METHOD. "^J 

has induced men of high mental cuhure to narrow their intel- 
lectual power by confining- their thought to one line, instead of 
the wider, broader, better development of many things and many 
topics of study, all of v/hich will be modified by the educational 
system of self-support, which will necessarily lead to some 
knowledge of many trades and sciences of allied things. 

The whole scientific and Christian ideal would be to at all 
times and in all ways keep the main study and work, from the 
shop to the laboratory, the ideal of making the broadest and most 
all-around developed men and women, as the chief concern of all 
art, study, business or religion. To ''draw out" and magnify 
human talents of highest altruistic use is and should be the aim 
of all teaching. 

HAND TRAINING AIDS MENTAL DEVELOPMENT. 

A veteran educator in urging this ideal of hand training in 
connection with mental culture, and for making it free and 
universal, decla.red that he did it not for material reasons mainly, 
but because it represented moral and spiritual advance. 

Another prominent educator with ripe experience in manual 
training declares his observation to establish the fact that pupils 
can work four hours per day at industrial lines and make better 
progress along purely literary lines than with no industrial 
training during the school period ; and he gives his unqualified 
endorsement to the proposition that a course of training in 
mechanics and industry with the academic will afiford a vastly 
superior mental equipment for an) practical or professional life. 

The college professor who declared he had learned three 
trades after becoming an educator said he had found it the best 
recuperative recreation he had tried, and with it he was conscious 
of an added mental power. 

We know of two very able imiversity educators whose rule 
of life is to work four hours per day in garden or shop, with most 
beneficial results, and a wholesale merchant whose shop and tools 
are his constant source of rest and recreation. 

We are sure that if a system of P'ree Universal Industrial 
Colleges were tO' be organized, whose whole cost of maintenance 



78 SELF-SUPPORT BEST EDUCATIONAL METHOD. 

was to be upon the taxation of the country, it vv'ould still be the 
cheapest and best method for preventing crime, and that it would 
so increase the wealth-producing power of the citizenship as to 
be immensely profitable to the state. 

It would not be so radical a step in advance of the age as 
was the establishment of the common school in the early history 
of this nation, when it seemed by the pre-established custom a 
great wrong to tax one man to educate another man's child. To 
decree that every child should be kept in school till the age of 
legal responsibility and never allowed to become a citizen until 
well trained in handicraft, aind with a college diploma for a 
completed course of general study, would, we are sure, like the 
establishment of the common school, mark an epoch in the history 
of our country. The age demands and will sustain the movement. 

In the early history of one of our most popular colleges, 
teachers and pupils worked together full half time at the heavy 
work of clearing, building and farming to grow their own crops, 
and while doing all this the able president declared they made 
as good progress along literary lines as has ever been done since 
with no work at all; and the early students had a higher average 
of all-round ability than later ones. Similar records have been 
partially made by many pioneer colleges. 

In almost all" our colleges there is a larger class wishing for 
the meager chance of self-support than the opportunities offer. 
If the present colleges would or could use a portion of their 
endowment funds, now locked up to draw interest, to build an 
equipment for productive labor, it would be a decidedly better 
use of money and open a wider door of usefulness to many a 
struggling college. But to be most perfectly adapted to the ideal 
of a scientific system each college and university should be fully 
equipped for productive labor by its pupils, and make a certain 
amount of labor and hand training a necessary portion of every 
course for every pupil, thus preventing a labor caste or its 
possibility from tainting its moral atmosphere ; and only when 
this has become universal in our colleges, seminaries and univer- 
sities can we be said to be free from the moral taint so heartily 
condemned by the philosophical Spencer and accepted by so wide 



SELF-SUPPORT BEST EDUCATIONAL METHOD. 79 

a circle of progressive minds, and the era of a perfected 
educational system, dreamed of as only possible in a far distant 
future by the prophet Froebel, be begun. 

Then only may we hope to have teachers, preachers, mission- 
aries and professionals who shall not scatter pagan social 
standards to demoralize our home society and injure our influence 
among the benighted islands of the sea or in the dark continents 
of the earth. 

One of our most able all-round educators speaks of the almost 
mysterious mental power gained by the totally uneducated 
(according to common parlance) who have learned several 
mechanical trades, or perhaps have only worked in younger years 
at several trades enough to have acquired their essential principles 
with some degree of hand skill, and through this have become 
men of well known "all round" ability. 

This cultivation of "all-round ability" w^as the special charac- 
teristic of early New England people, who, in the home 
manufacture of everything used on the place, had a very wide 
education in mechanical principles and gained much skill in a 
varied handicraft ; and it developed a mental equipment of 
exceedingly high average powers, not only in practical matters, 
but also in the higher flights of metaphysical, spiritual and 
scientific 'deductions — Wendell Phillips declared the highest the 
world has ever seen. 

In the study of its effects on national character it can be 
seen among the characteristics of peoples from Northern Europe 
— those who have for some centuries been tenants on land belong- 
ing to others, having no special inducem_ent to repair homes and 
keep things in order, have lost the "all-round ability," but which 
is soon re-developed in pioneering in this country ; while the 
peoples from the countries where they own their own homes and 
have made and repaired their furniture, implements and clothing 
have a far superior adaptation to all-round utilities and a higher 
averag;e mental and moral equipment. 

The mind-dwarfing effect, too, is easily seen among those who 
have for some generations been confined to factory life, where 
they have only been taught to tend some one machine and to do 



8o SELF-SUPPORT BEST EDUCATIONAL METHOD. 

onl} one monotonous thing, which reduces the "ah-round" talent 
to a minimum ; and from this class there hut rarely springs a 
genius. 

In the training of women heretofore it has been ■ almost 
universal to totally neglect ail teaching of mechanical principles 
or any handicraft skill, while it is certain that she4)eculiarly needs 
the development of the logic and ability to reason from cause to 
etTect which the study and practice of mechanics is so well 
adapted to impart. 

Froebel would have girls have the same plays as boys till 
twelve or fourteen years of age, and have them trained along 
handicraft lines all through their whole educational course ; and 
there can be no question of its high mental and moral benefit. 

In a few progressive schools manual training, cabinet work 
and even light forging have been given the young ladies and has 
been enjoyed with enthusiasm and great benefit. Gardening and 
horticulture should be a necessity for every young lady, and no 
diploma given without proficiency along some line of industrial 
education. 

This would be a most important step in the development of 
a higher average citizenship. 

The philosophy of universal hand culture as an important 
portion of all education and its bearing on the permanence of 
national life are too well known and acknowledged to need any 
profuse argument among practical people. It will not be 
questioned except by those who have been perverted by a false 
system, and the most of these will admit the value of it. 

The extreme but profound philosophy of Froebel has won 
its way to the minds of almost all thoroughly progressive 
teachers and thinkers ; and we cannot more radically put the 
value and essential necessity of hand culture as a fundamental 
portion of an education from the kindergarten through the uni- 
versity. His philosophy only seems extreme when brought into 
contrast with a system confessedly tainted and corrupted, utterly 
unworthy an age whose ideals are to make a sovereign of every 
citizen and to prevent any slavish class from being developed in 
society. 



SELF-SUPPORT BEST EDUCATIONAL METHOD. 8l 

But the days of the old system are numbered, and it is now 
only a question of how soon the system of universal hand culture 
can be established, and with it to re-establish the true Christian 
ideal of the God-like attribute of creative labor as an expression 
of man's highest mental and spiritual development. 

ESSENTIALS OF AN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. 

What then are the essentials of an educational system for an 
advancing Christian and democratic civilization and suited to the 
aims of a twentieth century progress and the hope of a permanent 
national life? 

We answer : Well equipped plants, with abundant land for 
gardens, hothouses, dairies, etc., and the necessary appliances for 
carrving on the work ; shops of all kinds furnished with necessary 
materials, that the labor of students may be used to advantage ; 
and teachers who will work with pupils ; all this added to the 
usual outfit -for an academic education, and the equipment is 
complete. This for a general outline. 

In detail, a school of this sort should be established in every 
county, and such forms of manufacturing and agriculture 
undertaken as are adapted to the locality. Eventually every 
college and university a center for industrial activity, as well as 
mental training. 

We have this idea of handiwork in the kindergarten; later 
we find it in the manual training that is. being introduced into 
our schools so rapidly and successfully. Let us carry this idea 
still further, and when the boys and girls are old enough to begin 
wage earning and feel the necessity of leaving school that they 
may add somewhat to the revenue of the family, or at least 
supply their' own needs, let us have a universal system of free, 
SELF-SUPPORTING INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS, thoroughly equipped by 
the state, where, without further cost to state or parents, they 
may cultivate the threefold nature, hand, head and heart, to its 
highest capacity. 



Summary. 

If then an essential difference between pagan and Christian 
civiHzations is in their widely varying concepts in regard to the 
nobility of labor; 

If the Anglo-Saxon civilization is still tainted with the pagan 
idea of the disgrace of labor; 

If hand training is of such immense value as the complement 
of mental culture, and together they tend to form a high moral 
character ; 

If our present school system is based upon pagan ideals and 
tends to produce a "labor caste ;" 

If our schools do not fit for "complete living," and our 
graduates must "unlearn in practical life much that they learn 
in schools ;" 

If the influence of teachers will be^ greatly increased when 
they work with their pupils in garden and shop ; 

If it will be an advantage in the forming of character for 
pupils to remain longer under the guidance of teachers ; 

If the children of the slums and the poor and ignorant 
everywhere can be elevated in their three-fold nature ; 

If the children of the profligate rich can be changed into useful 
members of society ; 

If a larger proportion of feeble-miinded and unprecocious 
children can be developed to a greater degree of usefulness 
through the training of the physical ; 

If Industrial Training be the most efficient means for the 
prevention of crime ; 

If it be true that pupils have greater pleasure and incentive 
in working to supply their own needs than in working without 
special aim ; 

If skilled hands and cultured brains give the highest 
happiness ; 

And if the strength of the whole must be judged by the 
strength of the weakest part, and this will tend to establislj^ 
national permanence : 

Then is it indeed time that we as a nation establish a 

82 



SUMMARY. 83 

Complete System of free, self-supporting industrial schools 
AND COLLEGES in every part of our country. 

"The coming ideal of Democracy shall be to have the University 
go to every man and woman of the nation; and we dare add that it 
should go to them as free as air and as glorious as sunshine. In 
fact, the hands, while plucking from the Tree of Knowledge should 
learn in the act how to cultivate the Tree to its fullest fruition." 

—Ferguson. 



''PHILISTINIA" 



HUBBARD'S PUNGENT PARAGRAPHS. 



"The world does not need colleges, seminaries or universities 
that unfit for useful effort." 

"The best part of life is in supplying yourself with the things 
you need." 

"If everything is done for us, we will not do much for ourselves." 

"If you knew of a school where a boy or girl of sixteen to twenty 
could go and earn a living while getting an education, would you not 
send them there?" 

"To be able to earn a living is quite as necessary as to parse a 
Greek verb." 

"The only reason why the industrial college has not yet been 
evolved is that we have not, so far, evolved the men big enough to 
captain both education and industry." 

"We have men big enough for college presidents— thousands of 
them; but we haven't men who can direct the energies of young 
men and women into useful channels, and at the same time feed 
their expanding minds. This indicates a race of pigmies." 

"There is wide room for the man or men who can set in motion 
a curriculum that will embrace Earning a Living and Mental Growth, 
and have them move together hand and hand. ' ' 

"Life until yesterday was considered one thing, and Education 
another— which is exactly as it should not be. For the man who 
can weld Life and Education, the laurel is waiting." 

"The chief error of colleges lies in the fact that they have 
separated the world of culture from the world of work. They have 
fostered the fallacy that one set of men should do the labor, and 

84 



PPIILISTINIA, 85 

another set of men should have the education— that one should be 
ornamental, the other useful." 

"To bolster their position, they have manufactured the specious 
arguments that the professionals are better than the people who 
toil to clothe and feed them." 

' ' The fact is, the opportunities for an education should be within 
the reach of every individual." 

"The colleges are constantly graduating incompetent people, and 
this will continue till men get a living and an education at the same 
time." 

"President Eliot says, 'I will never be satisfied until one-half 
the curriculum at Harvard is devoted to doing things. ' ' ' 

"The preacher who is separated from the world of useful effort 
hasn't anything worth telling on Sunday." 

"To do no useful work for four years, in order to be useful 
thereafter, will some day be looked upon as a barbaric blunder." 

"Five hours of manual labor a day will not only support the 
student, but will add to his intellectual vigor and conduce to his 
better physical, mental and spiritual development. This work should 
be a portion of the curriculum. ' ' 

"All persons should do some work; no person should be over- 
worked." 

"To work intelligsntly is education; to abstain from useful 
work while getting an education is a false education." 

"All degrees should be honorary, and be given for doing some- 
thing useful to society." 

"THE WALLS OF THE OLD-TIME COLLEGE ARE CRUM- 
BLING." 

— "The Philistine." 



APPENDIX. 



A Forward and Upward Step in Universal Education. 

A Radical Paper Read at Annual Meeting of Minnesota 

Educational Association, St. Paul, Minnesota, 

December 28, 1901, by S. H. Comings. 

PRELUDE. 

(By Editor National Printer-Journalist.) 

While at the recent meeting of the executive committee of the National 
Editorial Association, in a private conversation with the editor, Vice- 
President F. R. Gilson repeated the very general complaint as to the de- 
ficiencies of high school scholars and graduates in practical knowledge, 
in orthography, reading, writing and arithmetic. He complained of "fads," 
and thought that it would be better to go back to the "three R's" of our 
fathers than to continue the present system. All employing printers and news- 
paper publishers, and all business men and manufacturers make the same 
kind or similar complaints. The fact that without the counterbalancing 
education of useful, creative toil at home, which gave every child moral 
and physical fiber and inspired to noble aims in life, during the early 
days of the republic and the settlement and development of new states, an 
educational system has grown up in this country that is one-sided and en- 
feebling. It consists of mental gymnastics and the memorizing of lan- 
guages, history, mythology, and an excessive amount of abstract facts, 
records and theories that are largely meaningless to the learners and in 
no proper manner call into play the creative faculties or give impulse to 
doing something, to performance or preparation for practical endeavor. 
If any one proposes a change, he is called a faddist, and the dull, dwarfing, 
soul-benumbing, body-enfeebling processes in so-called education go on. 
If argument is brought to bear, the cry that comes back is that a greater 
per cent of the cellege graduates get into literature, into political office, and 
hence into the biographies and encyclopedias, than of those who do not 
enjoy such advantages (?). The fact is that the necessity of this kind 
of schooling has been so drilled into the minds of the people that it is 
taken as a panacea by all who have some broad inspiration to efifort — by 
all the brightest, hardiest and ambitious as a necessary medicine, and 
despite the fact that most of these afterwards look back with regret to the 
time and vitality wasted in learning that which can never be made useful 

87 



88 APPENDIX. 

and must be forgotten, but who go forward under the first inspiration with 
weakened effort to regain what has been lost and to learn what is found 
to be necessary to an active life and finally succeed despite the energy and 
years wasted. 

Many, however, come out of schools with such shattered, enfeebled 
bodies, so poorly equipped with practical views of life, lacking in moral 
purpose or aim, as to seek some sinecure, some office without toil or any 
duties that require either mental or physical effort. 

As the wheels of the world can not be turned backward to return to 
the "three Rs," as Editor Gilson suggests, we are glad to welcome the 
signs of reform and progress indicated by the following propositions, 
which we most heartily approve, and radical as it may seem to those who 
have been satisfied with present conditions, it is only along the lines laid 
down by the great Froebel for a complete school system. 

Benj. B. Herbert. 



A Free Self-Sustaining System of Industrial Schools 
and Colleges for All the Hope of the Republic. 

Thirty centuries ago that grand Patriot and Prophet, Isaiah, the 
Sociologist, foretold the time when 

"A man shall be more precious than fine gold." 

We fully believe the time has now come when the highest possible 
development of the average citizenship shall be the great aim and object 
of our civilization. 

Today on every hand we hear the anxious inquiry, "What can be 
done to make the achievements of the coming century more progressive 
and glorious for humanity than the one just passed?" 

What question more forcible can come to an educational association, 
since upon us rests the tremendous responsibility of laying scientifically 
the foundations for the enlarged capacities of a nobler manhood, and the 
higher attainments of practical usefulness, of a more exalted womanhood, 
such as the coming age demands. 

No one who has watched the steps of progress in educational methods 
for the past decade will question that along the lines of practical and in- 
dustrial training are the signs of greatest progress, or refuse to believe 
that this will make most efficient and useful the average citizenship of the 
coming century. 

The world has come to see the inspired wisdom of the assertion of 
Froebel — the great soul who originated the Kindergarten system — "That 
there is no such thing as the attainment or preservation of a high morality 
without the cultivation of skilled manual labor;" and we may safely insist 
that on the average the higher the attainment of creative skill in handi- 
craft the higher the moral exaltation; and' that the unhappiness and de- 
gradation that comes to useless, idle hands is as sure in the mansion as 
in the slum. 

Almost all here will accept the broad statement made by the versatile 
chaplain of the school at Tuskegee, "That man's complete powers are only 
found by simultaneously developing his head, hands, and heart." And no 
one dare say which is most important in forming the happy, well-balanced 
character, most useful in the world's work. 

The fact has been quite fully established that the most potent force in 
reclaiming the young who have started down the slippery grades of crime 
is through industrial training, along with mental and moral culture ; and 
likewise the same in the first steps .upward for those unfortunates who 
have little or no mental power, and for the elevation of the uncivilized 
races. 



90 APPENDIX. 

The superintendent of the Haskell Indian School declared, "That 
while he felt that mental and manuaLtraining together were like the two 
halves of a globe, both about equally necessary to make a whole, yet if he 
could only have one he should unhesitatingly choose the shops and the 
farm rather than the school, for elevating the Indian toward civilized cit- 
izenship." 

Pathetic indeed have been some cases of apparent failure along this 
line, where the reliance for race elevation has been on literary training 
alone, but a gratifying success came later when the change to hand cul- 
ture has brought most satisfying results on the same field. 

The enthusiastic pioneer manual training expert of Chicago declared, 
"It makes a new and superior order of people." 

Most all agree, at least partially, with the stirring condemnation of 
the present system of head education alone, by the eminent literary lady 
who says it deserves the title of "The modern method for the slaughter 
of the innocents," resulting in many cases in nervous wrecks, and in no 
case fulfilling the greatest object of an educational system, to draw out and 
ripen for use, the latent forces of intellectual, moral and physical being for 
the needs of practical life. 

Many of the best educators have made very similar declarations in 
favor of most radical changes in our educational system and in deprecia- 
tion of the present method of study alone. And all agree that mechanical 
and industrial training is as important for the learned professions as for 
those whose life's work is wholly along industrial avocations. It gives a 
practical quality to mental power obtained in no other way. 

A prominent educator has declared that the main purpose of much 
of the present system of education is to create a literary aristocracy, and 
there can be no question but much of our system was copied from English 
and old world methods — where aristocratic ideals were dominant — and very 
much readjustment of courses of study is needed to adapt a system to 
the higher ideals of true democracy in this practical and humanitarian 
age. And along these lines of least resistance do we find pupils most wil- 
lingly led. Most students will love the sciences that pertain to matters 
of daily life, and along these lines they will become students for life, one 
of the greatest aims for all education. 

All of this, and vastly more, that we cannot touch upon, has fully 
established the fact that for the coming age handicraft and general indus- 
trial training shall go along with mental culture, and that the moral uplift 
of educating the hands for creative labor is due to every child of the 
Republic 

To suggest the easiest and most natural pathway for this great con- 
summation of giving to every child a complete and liberal education is the 
purpose of this paper; and we deplore the absolute inadequacy of our 
time for a fair presentation of our contention that it is both possible and 



APPENDIX. 91 

practical, and that here and now is the time and place to initiate the move- 
ment. 

After several years of study and consultation with many eminent edu- 
cators in many dierent portions of our country, we are of the decided 
opinion that for students of over fifteen and sixteen years of age, it is 
perfectly feasible to organize a system of free industrial high schools and 
colleges that shall become nearly or absolutely self-supporting from the 
productive labor of the students and at the same time be the most effective 
method for a correct and scientific educational system. 

If this is practicable then surely there is no need of further delay in 
taking the initiative steps for so great and progressive an upward move- 
ment. 

Is there not an imperative call to this patriotic and progress-loving 
association to put forth its widest efforts to "set the pace" for such a 
work as shall be the beginning of a system that shall secure the highest 
average citizenship the world has ever seen? 

The facts and the figures, the precedents and examples, the confirming 
opmions of prominent educators and business men who have enthusiastic- 
ally indorsed the plan, are all too numerous to mention here. Many of 
them have come from the early history of our pioneer colleges and schools, 
where teachers and students have worked half time at the hardest manual 
labor and yet made records of progress fully equal to the best of modern 
days and graduated scholars of more uniform practical power than the 
later schools of study alone. 

The achievements of our co-worker, Booker T. Washington, is one 
illustration, perhaps the most inspiring, and the nearest to our proposal 
that we need offer. 

There, with student labor alone, he has created a plant worth nearly 
a half million dollars, during a little over a decade of time, and at the 
same time has given his pupils a far better average education than if they 
had come with money in their pockets to pay their way and gone through 
the usual college course. The frequent remark heard from visitors at his 
school is, "Why cannot our white children have as good a school as this?" 

We feel sure that any truth-seeking committee can be satisfied that 
with a fairly equipped plant with modern' appliances students of high 
school age can produce enough for all their own needs in from four to 
six hours' labor per day, and the evidence is overwhelming that students 
who give this amount of time to exhilarating creative labor for their own 
uses in the shops, gardens and farm, will excel in mental progress and in- 
tellectual equipment the students who pay their way and do no work with 
their hands. 

Despite the contention of some of our esteemed friends who are man- 
ual training experts, that no direct reference to the bread-and-butter ques- 
tion should enter the school life, we still maintain that this method of 



71 APPENDIX. 

direct production for personal uses is the more natural and more scientific 
method, and has many and evident advantages over any other method. 
Among which we claim that in labor, for personal needs, and in creating 
things in which the students have a proprietary interest will naturally and 
inevitably lead to greater care and nicety ef detail and greater effort at 
durable and thorough work — habits of great importance in educational 
labor. 

Perhaps one of the greatest advantages may be along the line sug- 
gested by Col. Parker, of Chicago Normal School, who declared that the 
highest aim of our common school system is the cultivation of the altruistic 
or mutualistic spirit, the unifying effect among the people ^of study and 
work together. This alone he declared was the grandest and highest aim 
of school life. 

And to attain this we believe nothing can equal the system we propose, 
where teachers and pupils shall have a mutual interest and mutual labor in 
creating the varied products for their own use. 

This, if anything, will produce the development of that "brotherhood 
spirit" which has been the dream of poets and philosophers of all ages. 

We believe in no other way can the deplorable and dangerous antag- 
onisms between classes of society be so effectually pacified as by thus 
leveling upward those who have heretofore been called the lower classes 
simply from lack of that culture which would enable them to appreciate all 
that is highest and best in life. 

This disintegrating conflict between social classes is one of the most 
feared features of present conditions by all the most thoughtful sociologists. 

This system we are assured will do more than any other method to 
establish the real nobility and dignity of skilled labor and exemplify the 
suggestion of Frcebel that "By labor God has endowed man with a portion 
of His own Creative Attribute." 

A prominent editor tersely declares, "It was not without design that 
the exemplar of a divine human life and the expounder of the highest and 
most scientific philosophy of life should have had his training as a useful 
carpenter in the environment of an agricultural community." And all 
down the records of history we find the greatest and best men come from 
the school of industrial life and from close contact with nature. 

The first divinely appointed "Labor Leader," after the fullest possible 
education in court and university, was forced to pass a period of forty 
years' tuition as a stock raiser and farmer before he was properly fitted to 
become the founder of a great empire and a law-giver whose enactments 
were among the loftiest expressions of a true democracy the world has 
ever seen, and the basis for the laws of civilization for four thousand 
years. 

Whatever may be the grounds for the contention that the school period 
should be entirely divorced from any effort to gain a living, its worst 



APPENDIX. 93 

disadvantages cannot possibly equal the vast advantages to the nation that 
shall so reduce the burden to the taxpayer and the individual as to make 
the privilege and advantages of a complete education universal, and thus 
check the tendency, necessary among so large a class, to begin active, and 
oftentimes demoralizing, labor at an early age with mental equipment 
scantily developed. 

The figures show us the startling fact that increase of crime and its 
results is the heaviest burden upon the taxpayer next to the common 
school as a direct result, and probably the indirect result of a loss of equal 
proportions in the loss of creative labor among the criminal classes. While 
many sociologists declare that with half the direct cost of crime and its 
accessories spent in wise methods of prevention there need be scarce any 
crime at all. We believe it safe to assume that in one generation of such 
universal industrial training as we propose, the reduction of crime and its 
costs and the vastly increased production of such a citizenship as would 
result would vastly reduce the present enormous burden of taxation. 

A wise student from Europe suggested that this republic would not be 
likely to be destroyed by any Goths and vandals from without, but would 
be very likely to be destroyed by vandals from within, and we know that 
the most of the tramps, assassins and criminals that are a menace to our 
age and a vast expense to the State, come from the so-called "neglected 
classes," who have no proper educational development. 

Among this unhappy class are no doubt a full proportion of poets, 
philosophers, inventors and statesmen who, with our system, would be 
properly educated to bless the world with their talents, instead of as now 
being a curse to themselves and the world. 

Another and not the least of the advantages we shall claim for this 
system of education would be the cultivation of the elevating love for the 
gentle arts of horticulture, gardening and scientific farming and all their 
allied branches. 

Man's highest moral life, we are told, was in the garden, and the 
nearer he can be led back to a living communion with nature and all her 
visible forms, the better for his ethical development. 

We are sure that when entirely divorced from the love for and cul- 
tivation of living things, man cannot attain to his best, and for all this our 
ideal system of study and work of shop and garden, farm and office, with 
the combination of healthful hours of creative labor and intellectual cul- 
ture, will be for the highest development for life's work and pleasures. 

One of the most discouraging features to the optimistic sociologist of 
to-day is the dwarfing, narrowing effect on the mental powers of the many 
who are forced to begin factory life in early years, and only learn to do 
some one monotonous task that stunts and destroys all powers of initiative 
and independence. As Bishop Potter remarks : "It reduces men to the 
mental condition of the machines they tend." 



94 



APPENDIX. 



With such a system of universal complete education all the young will 
be under the strong and beneficient personal influence of teachers during 
the critical formative period of life so very far above the dwarfing, and 
ofttimes demoralizing influences, which now surround and destroy the 
many who are obliged to begin breadwinning at an immature age with 
scant mental equipment. 

From this uplifting influence about the young we may safely rely on 
producing citizens of such mental and moral character and ability as shall 
be fully competent to deal with the intricate problems of social, economic 
and political adjustment of an advancing civilization, which more and 
more requires to be controlled by a citizenship unlimited by ignorance and 
actuated by the lofty patriotism that comes only from high mental and 
moral culture. 

If the glorious time is to come which was so tersely foretold by the 
great prophet, "When men and their highest culture shall be more precious 
to the aims of civilization than fine gold or anything it can purchase," then 
shall those who toil in shop, office or factory only be kept indoors from 
six to eight hours, and then go forth to homes with gardens, trees, vines 
and flowers and living things to care for, which will in a large measure 
restore the blessedness of the picture of original Eden. And for this type 
of a higher life our self-supporting industrial schools will specially prepare 
the citizens of the coming glorious age. 

And such an ideal life for the toilers has already had its incipient de- 
velopment in many living examples and' with most inspiring success. 

The world is just beginning to see — but as yet dimly — the grand 
truth that a high degree of moral and mental culture is as profitable in 
production of wealth as it is ennobling and exalting in personal character. 
It is very safe to assume that the wealth production value of a skilled cit- 
izen is from two to four times as great as the uneducated. 

Our pilgrim fathers, inspired by the need of a broadly intelligent 
citizenship for their proposed republic, established the common school for 
the free education of all. It was a most radical departure, but the grandest 
of their achievements, the chief cornerstone of our institutions, and it 
"set the pace" for the whole world. It came when the clock of progress 
had struck the hour for a grand step upward and forward to a higher 
evolution of democracy. 

At that time every child had a complete and thorough industrial 
training in the domestic manufacture of almost all the clothing and im- 
plements of the home, and this varied and practical training resulted in 
producing the high average type of early New England citizens, with 
their all around capacity. Wendell Phillips declared it the highest type 
of Christian civilization the world had ever seen. European visitors ad- 
mitted it had created a nczv and superior order of people. 

Since then the factory system has come in, and with its minute division 



APPENDIX. 95 



of labor has tended to dwarf the intelhgence and capacity of a great por- 
tion of those who are kept at one monotonous hne of work wholly depend- 
ent on a "boss" for all initiative, never having the uphft of creating or 
owning a home of their own and totally divorced from any touch with 
nature in the care of living things. ■ , a 

Has not the clock of progress, impelled by an imperative social need 
again struck the hour for the next great step upward and forward to a 
JtiU higher evolution of democracy that shall give to every child of onr 
land a full and complete education of head, hands and heart? 

We believe the time is ripe; the resistless forces of social and mechan- 
ical evolution call today for a higher average type of citizenship than ever 
before and we have already the well tested and proven method for pro- 
ducing the superior character of people which the needs of the time de- 

""^^ Shall we then, hesitate to act up to our highest inspiration? 

Has the e not come to this association a most inspiring opportunity 
to initiate a work that shall set a new pace for the worlds progress and 
has'ei forward the fulfilling of that vision of the great statesman and 
prophet, when men and their highest development shall be more precious 
tban all the fine gold of material things? 

Most will agree that the only serious obstacle to this great consumma- 
tion Ts he possible financial burden, but this, as we have partially shown 
can be reduced to the minimum by the fact that the creative forces of 
-modem production are such that pupils can create the most of their own 
needs and at the same time have the best system for development of their 
varfed powers, with such sure preventive of their crimes ever being a tax 
Z^l state' as to ^^ ^ ^V^^- CdrTtZL:^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
-fl rmth^^^e^tCtrr'usuIi college endowment of a million 

'°"Y: "eHf -this we can see the great waste and wrong of the whole 

-: ^r-i::^=i^t-^ 

but comparatively few. f^^^.^ 

We deem it no imaginary concept to beli.ve tnar m 

also where those who wish to continue to hve " ^^^'^ 3f;;Vginal 

=■ ^t:rntLet nrih:;:iis ;:::t,rfins o. he... 

f„l labor and livelihood, so long as they ->>'^^J':= '"jl^" ""^f ,,is propo- 



g6 APPENDIX. 

had subscribed towards an endowment fund for a college who declared he 
would at once make his gift five times larger for an equipment fund when 
the plan was presented to his consideration, and others have given similar 
assurances of preference tor this system. 

To those who may question the ability of students to produce all their 
own living expenses, with no detriment to their mental progress, we need 
only refer to the well known facts in relation to the actual small labor cost 
of all the essentials of good living, but we forbear to use more time for 
details. 

We would not presume to come before this association with so radical 
a proposition without the approval of many practical men. 

If one such school can be established to lead the way, we may con- 
fidently look forward to the not far distant day when every county of our 
state shall have a school equal in social and economic value to our noted 
agricultural college near this city, and the South can have a hundred 
schools like Booker Washington's. 

And when the whole citizenship shall be thus elevated and cultured 
we may be sure the geniuses of such an age will tower to heights as yet 
undreamed of in exaltation of character and usefulness. 

If, then, our several contentions are essentially correct — that no educa- 
tion can properly be called liberal or complete without mechanical and 
general industrial training; if it be needful for all classes and professions 
for best mental equipment ; if it be true that a self-supporting system is 
the most natural and scientific method ; if the State cannot afford to have 
half-developed citizens; if the uplift and joy of skilled creative labor be the 
inalienable birthright of every citizen; if labor be an important part of 
ethical culture ; if this complete system of education for all be the surest 
and most economical prevention of destructive anarchy and crime — then 
surely there has come to this association and to this State, which has now 
a high reputation for progressive action, the great privilege of beginning 
a movement not second in importance to humanity to the great step of our 
pilgrim fathers, who set the pace for developing the highest type of people 
the world has ever yet seen. 

The world has recently been electrified by news of gifts of fifty million 
dollars for higher university educational purposes. Startling as is this 
colossal contribution for school purposes, and beneficial as it may be for 
higher attainments for the few, we are profoundly impressed with the 
conviction that to open the doors to a free and all around industrial and 
mental training to every boy and girl of the mass of people will be of 
vastly more importance to the State and nation than these monumental 
gifts. 

If then we shall set in motion this great movement, the future chron- 
iclers of this nation shall give as the history of our ttvo greatest steps 
forward and upward, towards the higher civilization that is surely coming, 



APPENDIX. 07 

the first, when the pilgrim fathers decreed that every child should learn 
to read ; the second like unto the first, when we decree that every boy and 
girl shall be taught how to work. 

The glory and safety of a republic lies in the intelligence and inde- 
pendence of its toilers and wealth producers, for from them comes the 
tendency to growth or decay. A higher life for all the people is the need 
of the hour. 

S. H. Comings, 

1272 County Road, St. Paul. 
NOTE. 

A committee in Minnesota acting on this plan, at a second meeting, 
after a full discussion, decided to call for bids, or offers of land and help 
from any of the towns of the state, for the first two or three experimental 
schools to demonstrate how far such schools can be made self-supporting. 

The chairman, Dr. Smith, suggested that it would be a much more 
desirable school to have in or near a town than any of the reform schools, 
for which there had been a lively competition from several towns. 



Extract 

From an Address Before the Nebraska Legislature by Col. Edward Dan- 
iels, of Washington, D. C. In regard to a pending bill on County 
Industrial Schools. 

A PLAN FOR SCHOOLS OF INDUSTRY OF EACH COUNTY. 

The mass of children in Nebraska, as in most states of the Union, 
leave school in the lower grades. Only one-twentieth reach the high 
school. They have no chance to get such complete training as each needs 
in actual life. Most of them must work with their hands. But there is 
no adequate provision to make them intelligent and skillful workmen. 

There are few skilled workmen among the native born. The natural 
right of each to the best means of unfolding all his power is abridged 
to his personal loss. The progress and prosperity of the state is arrested 
or delayed, and the future menaced by an appalling increase of the incap- 
able and discontented. 

Already every trade is crowded with botches and amateurs who sac- 
rifice the property, health, and lives of their patrons. From the careless 
milker in the country dairy, who fills the precious fluid on which babes and 
invalids must feed with poisonous filth, to the high priced plumber, who 
turns the sewer gas into the schoolroom or the chamber of sleeping in- 
nocence, technical ignorance assaults unceasingly the whole line of life ! 

This state of things results from a serious defect in our educational 



98 APPENDIX, 

system. It has not brought its best ideas within reach of the great body of 
the people. 

To meet this neglected duty of the state to that large class of children 
now growing up, a bill (No. 143, Senate File) has been prepared. You are 
respectfully urged to examine it carefully, and, if approved, support it 
earnestly. It is a simple, inexpensive mode of starting a good work. This 
bill appropriates no money and creates no expensive offices or liabilities. 

It makes a part of the officers of each county,, ex officio, a body cor- 
porate for the purpose of establishing a school of applied science and in- 
dustry. They organize and submit to the people the proposition to have 
such a school. If the people approve, power is given to tax themselves two 
mills per dollar of valuation for five years. If the people refuse, the board 
still exists and can appeal for donations. There is thus always an author- 
ized responsible body that can execute the will of generous citizens. The 
good cause will grow with discussion and increasing knowledge. 

If the people tax themselves for founding the school, they elect a 
board of five trustees who thereafter manage it. They locate the site in 
the county with ample land for intensive farming. Temporary shelters 
may be erected and the students assembled. Workshops, with appliances 
for teaching the trades, are to be provided. Agriculture and horticulture, 
including fruit growing, dairying, forestry, irrigation, animal industry, 
will be taught, and elementary but thorough instruction in the sciences 
that relate to life, home building and home keeping, the art of making 
themselves and others comfortable, healthy and happy, should be taught to 
all — girls as well as boys. 

The permanent buildings of such a school, and all thai: they contain, 
should, as far as possible, be created by the pupils and their teachers. Such 
a school would be near all the people of each county. They could take 
their children there, erect some cheap shelters for temporary use, supply 
them with food cheaply, and visit them often. Similar to this, fifty years 
ago, were the New England academies where so many of that generation 
were helped forward. 

Children of fourteen years who have completed the district school 
course can enter these schools. They must work with their hands, in 
some one of the departments, a few hours daily. The love of work, nat- 
urally in each healthy child, is to be cherished and strengthened. Intel- 
ligent companionship, theory and practice hand in hand, teacher and pupil 
together in the work shop, the school room, the play ground, and at the 
festive board — these conditions will relieve labor of irksomeness and lift 
it into dignity, especially when all distinctions are lost in the equity that 
makes faithful work the only test of merit. We must uplift this standard 
of the New Education to get the best out of our youth. 

To grow a tree, to dig a ditch, to shoe a horse well, to make or mend 
a garment, to produce a roll of exquisite butter or a loaf of perfect bread 



APPENDIX. 



99 



must become a matter of .honest pride not less than a briUiant oration, or 
a musical performance of surpassing skill. In these colleges of the people 
the love of work will equal the love of play. Skillful labor will become 
play, as in all wholesome children it is seen to be. The manly art of self- 
support will be taught — now fast becoming one of the "lost arts" among 
our youths. 

The movement for industrial education is gaining ground all over 
the world. Enlightened governments abroad have given it hberal and in- 
creased support from year to year. Practical educators see that hand 
work is essential to the best mind work. The students who labor outstrip 
those who do not. 

Business men attest the superiority of working students in affairs. 
The Commercial Club of Chicago has raised two hundred thousand dollars 
for manual training. Mr. Phil Armour has invested a million in the same 
work. The Armour Institute and the Armour Mission, under the able 
control of Dr. Gunsaulus is transforming a thousand poor children into 
skilled workmen and liberally educated men and women. Its founder says 
"it is the best investment he ever made." Other rich men are feeling this 
benign impulse. 

Everywhere there is an advance towards a more practical education. 

Gentlemen of the Legislature, give the people of the counties a chance 
to secure this great boon for their children ! It will cost nothing to try 
it. Great results will not be seen at first. But let the people begin. When 
they have done their best, aid is sure to come from generous citizens. They 
will see returns a thousand fold in a crop of young men and women, sound 
of mind and body, self-supporting, responsible, and fully equipped for 
useful and happy lives. Respectfully submitted, EDWARD DANIELS. 



lOO APPENDIX. 



The following are the texts of the bills introduced to Congress by Col. 
E. Daniels. With some endorsements of the same from well known 
people : 

In the House of Representatives. 

December 19, igoi. 

Mr. Rixey (by request) introduced the following bill; which was referred 
to the Committee on Education and ordered to be printed. 
A Bill to encourage industrial education in the several States. 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 

U)iited States of America in Congress assembled, That the sum of 

million dollars is hereby appropriated, to be expended under the direction 
of the President of the United States, to help the several States establish 
and maintain a system of primary industrial schools. 

Sec. 2. That the President shall have power to appoint such agents 
as, in his discretion, may be needed to cai:ry out the purposes of this Act, 
and to fix the compensation for their services. 

Sec. 3. That no money shall be paid to any State until it shall have 
provided by law for a system of practical work training open to all its 
youth ; and for at least one such school in each county having a population 
of five thousand or more : Provided, That unless it shall have in actual 
operation five such schools with adequate farms, buildings, and a com- 
petent force of teachers, and that such schools be free of debt : Provided 
further, That all pupils shall work with their hands for four hours daily for 
five, days of each week of the term. 

Sec. 4. That no State shall be entitled to the benefits of this Act un- 
less within two years it shall have complied with the conditions and given 
the President satisfactory evidence of the facts above enumerated. 

Sec. 5. That the distribution of aid under this Act shall be in pro- 
portion to the actual attendance at schools, the time of attendance being 
considered, but the President may increase the sum paid to any State if, in 
his opinion, the public interests would be advanced thereby in the States 
least able to maintain such schools. 

Sec. 6. That this Act shall take effect immediately. 

In the Senate of the United States. 

December 18, 1901. 

Mr. Nelson (by request), introduced the following bill; which was read 
twice and referred to the Committeemen Education. 
A Bill to establish general system of industrial education in the ter- 
ritories and islands of the United Slates. 



APPENDIX. lOI 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled, 

That there shall be established in all the Territories subject to the 
exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, including the District of Colum- 
bia and the recently acquired islands, a system of primary industrial edu- 
cation, to the end that all citizens may become intelligent, skillful, efficient, 
and self-supporting citizens. 

Sec. 2. That in these schools of agriculture and the ordinary arts of 
civilized life shall be taught practically to all youth -who apply between 
the ages of thirteen and nineteen. Instruction shall include the sciences 
which underlie these arts, and every pupil shall be required to work with 
his hands daily not less than four hours, under the teacher in his depart- 
ment, which labor shall be compensation in full for his expenses at the 
school. 

Sec. 3. That all male students shall be instructed in the military art, 
thoroughly organized and drilled, so as to become a part of the National 
Guard. For this purpose officers of the Regular Army, non-commissioned 
or others not in active service may be assigned. 

Sec. 4. That the course of instruction in these schools shall extend 
over a period of five years, and at the close each student who has success- 
fully completed his studies and maintained a good moral character shall 
receive a certificate showing his standing. 

Sec. 5. That to carry out the provisions of this bill the following 
sums are hereby appropriated : First the sum of one million dollars to 
establish a school for the District of Columbia, within the District, or in 
one of the adjacent States, for use of its children; second the sum of fifteen 
millions of dollars for such schools in Porto Rico, the Philippines, and 
the Territories. 

Sec. 6. That the Commissioners of the District of Columbia are here- 
by charged with the execution of this law as it applies to this said District. 

Sec. 7. That the President shall appoint a commission of five compe- 
tent persons to carry out the purpose of this law in the Territories and 
insular dependencies of the United States. 

Sec. 8. That this act shall be in force from and after its passage, and 
the appropriation ^Yhich it carries shall become immediately available. 

"We cannot do too much for Industrial Education." 

—John G-raham Brooks, 

Harvard University. 

"This would he absolute righteousness in education." 

—Elbert Hubbard. 



102 APPENDIX, 

"It is the ideal of an educational system." 

—Rev. Frank Gunsaulus, 

Pres. Armour Institute. 

"I agree with you in every essential particular." 

—Dr. Albert Shaw, 
Editor Review of Reviews. 

Nothing could do greater good than your plans for an indus- 
trial school for every county." 

—Senator 0. K. Davis. 



A PLEA 

For a National Complete Education League, to Pro- 
mote a Much More Complete, and Scien- 
tific Educational System. 

It has been proposed to form a National League — and some 
steps have already been taken both North and South — whose 
supreme object shall be to advocate and take steps to inaugurate 
a much more complete, natural and scientific educational system. 

First. That shall aim at large increase of Democratic edu- 
cational privileges, and to develop the highest possible average 
of citizenship, in morals, intelligence, and industrial efficiency — 
a much higher average than now prevails. A system that shall 
reduce to a minimum the tendency to crime. 

Second. That shall give to every child of the Republic a 
complete, all-around education. That shall train the hands with 
the same care as the brain. And ultimately make a full Industrial 
College Course compulsory for all before they may become citi- 
zens of the commonwealth. 

Third. That shall endeavor to inaugurate a wide spread sys- 
tem of self-supporting schools, that will in time bring all Colleges, 
Semingiries, and Universities as near to a self sustaining basis as 
possible, each with its own industrial plant. In the full belief 
that they can be made nearly or quite self-supporting, for all 
pupils of fifteen of over, and to an extent for those much younger, 
and afford a much higher and better mental equipment, than is 
now obtained in the so-called "memory storing courses" where no 
attention is paid to hand training. 

Fourth. That shall make some type of Agricultural, or Hor- 
ticultural training, with allied sciences, an essential portion of 
every child's education. 

Fifth. That shall make play as Froebel taught, an essential 
portion of all educational courses from the Kindergarten through 

103 



I04 APPENDIX. 

the University with scientifically arranged playgrounds, a part 
of all school equipments. 

Sixth. That shall make special efforts to more fully develop 
the dull, slow, or unprecocious, and to bring out their talents 
to the fullest extent possible, through manual and industrial 
training, both as a preventive against any tendency towards crime, 
and to increase their industrial efficiency^ and also to give their 
children the benefits of better parentage, in the full assurance that 
many who are dull scholars when young, have latent possibilities 
of becoming geniuses, if only properly developed. And in general 
to carry out Froebel's teachings and philosophy much more fully 
than it has hitherto been done, for all classes and ages. 

Seventh. The League shall also stand for having the same 
teachers for all handicraft training, and academic courses, to work 
with their pupils, and thus illustrate and emphasize the insepar- 
able union of hand and brain culture, with highest social ideals, 
according to the true standards of a Christian and Democratic 
civilization. 

Eighth. The League shall press for both legislative and 
philanthropic aid in enlarging the democratic educational advan- 
tages of the producing masses from whom come the tendencies 
to national decay or progress. 

Ninth. The League shall stand for a demand by the Asso- 
ciated Teachers, and educators of the country, backed by the or- 
ganizations of Agriculture and Labor, for the expenditure by the 
general government of at least ttvice as much for aid and equip- 
ment of Industrial Schools as for the equipment of army and 
navy, or any accompaniment of war. 



Teachers, educators, clergymen and thinkers of all types who 
approve in essentials the foregoing, will confer a great favor on 
the movers of this effort by sending their names to the Author, 
with any suggestions, and indicate if they are willing tO' help for- 
ward the move by circulating literature, or in any way to help 
the work. If enough will volunteer, aside from those now en- 
listed, a Convention will be called that this ideal which has been 



APPENDIX. 105 

in the air for several years, may take on an organized form, and 
definite steps for aggressive action be taken. 

A Bill has been introdiiced in Congress, by that indefatigable 
worker for all social progress, Col. E. Daniels of Washington, 
for government aid to establish such a school in the District of 
Columbia, with the hearty endorsement of such men as Ex-Mayor 
Hewitt, President Schurman, General McArthur, et al., and the 
Bill will doubtless stay in committtees' hands until some organ- 
ized effort is made to secure action upon it. 

Tozvns, cities, or philanthropists who may wish to donate 
land for such a school, or any portion of the needed equipments, 
or teachers who would like to distinguish their career, by helping 
to organize and prove such a school as herein suggested, will also 
confer a favor by sending their names, and the kind of work they 
are competent to teach. 

All who in any way wish to help along the essentials of 
what has been proposed in this volume, are most heartily urged 
to send their names, and go on record, to help along by the 
momentum of numbers, if they can do no more at present. 

A few towns have already signified their desire to have such 
a school located in their vicinity, a few teachers have also ex- 
pressed their willing-ness to help forward the practical work, while 
many eminent professional and business men have given their 
approval in most unqualified terms to the movement, we feel sure 
it is along the lines of imminent progress, and only waits the 
united action of the many friends of educational reform and 
progress. 



WILL YOU HELP? 



This booklet will be sent to some who have not ordered it, 
and if it does not meet the favor of any such, the author begs 
pardon for the liberty taken, and hopes you will be so kind as to 
put a cent stamp on the private mailing card that will accompany 
it, with your address, and any desired criticism, and the author 
will remit the needed stamps for its return, with the stamps used, 
on the card. 

The author begs to state, that the booklet is not published in 
hope or expectation of profits, and if there should possibly be 
any, it, (and much more) is consecrated, and devoted to the cause 
of pressing the movement in all possible ways, particularly be- 
fore legislative committees, and teachers meetings, etc., in the hope 
of its being one great step in the preparation of the people for 
a higher social order. 

If the ends and aims of the booklet are favored by the re- 
cipient, and you are willing to aid the promotion of its object, 
and will mail some to friends or acquaintances, the price will be 
made at fifteen cents each for any number over four with the 
sample sent at first. And at the retail price the author will mail 
to any addresses sent direct. And we will be grateful for names 
sent of such as it will be likely to interest. 



107 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



The author is in communication with the private owner of a 
fine valuable college plant, that has been called a success, under 
the former system, but the owner now wishes to transform it to 
an Industrial Self-Supporting, (or approximately so) College, 
and wishes to open correspondence with teachers who have ability 
along some industrial vocation, as well as in literary lines, who 
will be glad to make this one of the pioneers of the new system 
as advocated in this little booklet. If any such will send names 
to the author we will be glad to help to establish their corre- 
spondence with the owner of the College. 



io8 



ADDENDA. 



THE GOSPEL OF LABOR. 

"This is the Gospel of Labor — 
Ring- it ye bells of the kirk! 
The Lord of love 
Came down from above, 
To live with those who work. 

This is the rose He planted, 
Here in the thorn cursed soil, 

Heaven shall be blest 

With active rest. 
But the best of earth is joyous toil," 

"The very best schools of the future, will be based on the 
plan of alternate work and study." — Dr. O. L. Triggs, Chica- 
go University. 

CIVILIZATION IN HAYTI AND SAN DOMINGO. 

"Lrabor is God's education for man." — Emerson. 

Along few lines of general interest has there been more 
misinformation, or more unjust conclusions, than in regard to 
the so called failure of the attempts to elevate the freedmen 
of Hayti and San Domingo. A striking example of a thing 
the world has known so surely and so long, that is NOT SO. 

Again and again with fullest assurance, has it been as- 
serted in the press and from the platform that all efforts to 
raise the freed colored and mixed races of Hayti and San 
Domingo have proven futile, and they have been believed to 
be incapable of elevation to any great degree of civilization, 
or mental improvement, and that they must be given over 
to riot and revolution, unless held down by the strong hand of 
the "superior races." 

But recently a student statesman of Hayti — who knows 
whereof he affirms — declares that the apparent failure has 
come from the unnatural and unscientific methods of educa- 



2 ADDENDA. 

tion pursued alike by both public and missionary schools, 
which have attempted to begin in the air, and build a mental 
culture with no foundation on the earth, of pride or skill in 
the essentials of industry and labor. The natives have seen 
the disinclination of their superiors and teachers to labor and 
following that universal trait of humanity to imitate those 
socially above us have felt that text book lore was not com- 
patible with pride in handicraft accomplishment. They have 
been taught the spelling book instead of gardening, higher 
mathematics and latin instead of the fundamental art ot 
tillage, from which all true civilization flows, and as naturally 
as water flows down grade, these people, following the false 
standards, have tried to live by their wits instead of by honest 
toil and have drifted into riot and revolution, for the simple 
reason that they had no industrial system in which they had 
any pride or interest. 

Here then we have the true reason for all this, decadent 
race history, this discouraging phase of the race problem — 
the heads of these people have been filled with the dry text 
book lore, the facts and data that have so little to do with 
active life, and particularly for newly freedmen, while the 
hands were all untaught, no pride in useful achievement culti- 
vated, the very foundations of a progressive social order neg- 
lected, and a false pride established in following the ex- 
ample of the teachers and preachers of the dominant race to 
eschew all possible labor of the hands, all the creative attribute 
of man, the highest given ; is it any wonder they have drifted 
into riot and revolution? They had no industrial system in 
which the ambitious could find a field for their best efforts 
and so have fulfilled the old adage more truthful than elegant. 
"Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do." 

And the world all untaught in a correct social science, has 
stood aghast, and declared that the colored races could not 
attain to the civilization of the white race, as impious to the 
Creator as it was unscientific. 

Knowing what we now do of the success of such schools 
as Hampton and Tuskegee, can there be a shadow of doubt, 
that if there had been such in Hayti and San Domingo, and 
hand-i-craft had preceded head-craft as nature provides, and 
pride and ambition in industry been made the corner stone of 
their teaching, they would have had a hopeful progressive 
history ? 



ADDENDA. 



THE PITIFUL PHILIPPINO FARCE. 

"I£ the blind lead the blind, they shall both fall into the 
mud."— Bible. 

' And now we get word that the same pitiful farce is being 
repeated in the Philippines, under the auspices of our Govern- 
ment schools. The teachers having been miseducated them- 
selves, are scattering the poison of a false system in the dark 
places and thus fulfilling the Scripture adage in regard to the 
leadings of the blind. 

A letter recently received from a friend who has been a 
government teacher in the Philippines and who has had a long 
and successful experience in this country as College President, 
an intense student of sociology and a humanitarian of wide 
sympathies, tells of all this. He declares that he pleaded 
earnestly that the first steps in educating the natives should 
be along industrial lines, but the imported American teachers 
had no hand-i-craft skill themselves and no approximate ap- 
preciation of its value as the first steps in an advanced social 
order, so they taught as they had been taught, imparting in- 
voluntarily the idea that to be educated and cultured is to 
avoid work and that labor is only for slaves and inferiors, and 
he declares it has done untold harm, and thousands of the 
natives have been spoiled from ever becoming practical, effi- 
cient citizens in the new civilization. They are puffed up with 
conceit and vanity because they have a little smattering ol 
English, and can put their name on paper, but have no ambi- 
tion or pride in skill in gardening, or any of the foundations 
of an industrial life. 

The few Agricultural schools and Experiment Stations are 
a great benefit to the older farmers and the few who get their 
teachings, but nothing can take the place of imparting to the 
youthful masses the very fundamentals of-an advancing civi- 
lization, that must come from skill in tillage and the arts tha^ 
naturally flow from that, and using the creative talents that 
only bring to man at-one-ment with his CREATOR. 

THE CONTRAST IN JAMAICA. 

"Rightness exalteth a nation." — Bible. 

Under the more humane rule of the British in Jamaica, the 
freedmen have been taught some of progressive agriculture 
and have made a slow but steady improvement. The relations 



4 ADDENDA. 

of the races have been pleasant, no infamovis crimes on record, 
no lynching-s or mobs called for. With better schools and 
more complete training in a variety of mechanic arts and men- 
tal culture the}^ would have attained a higher social develop- 
ment, for there can be no question but the evolutionary move- 
ments can be accellerated by proper study of social science, 
when the world shall have developed it as a science. 

A'Ve now learn that some promising young men from all 
these Islands of the Sea are in attendance at Tuskegee and 
Hampton, where a broader training is given, so we may hope 
in the future there will be a more rapid progress and the days 
of riot and revolution, tumult and turbulance will be no more. 

ANGLO-SAXON RACE PRIDE. 

"Pride goeth before distruction, and a haughty spirit be- 
fore a fall."— Bible. 

We need not be too arrogant in our race pride when we 
look back over the bloody pathway by which we have come up 
from the time when the great preacher of a better civilization, 
St. Paul, took his life in his hands, to preach to the heathen on 
Britons soil, who were sacrificing human beings to their su- 
perstitions. 

Neither the record of the cruel past nor the revelations of 
the present are conducive to our pride in our so called "Christ- 
like" social order. It is not at all flattering to our race to 
read Editor Steads expose of the unspeakable atrocities of 
the so-called "nobility," nor General Booth's "Darkest Eng- 
land" and the "Submerged Tenth"in a land that boasts of be- 
ing the richest nation on the earth. One English writer of 
world wide prominence declared that England is still in the 
main a paganism, with a few spots covered with a thin veneer 
of Christianity, and these spots making the surrounding pa- 
ganism more hideous in contrast. 

And when we study our land with all our boast of freedom 
and progress we find the atrocity of "child slavery" in our 
factories, with an army of men Avithout any way of earning an 
honest living. We have not yet studied the science of social 
adjustment to be very proud of our racial superiority, or we 
would not allow this nor the thousands of children to come up 
in the slums where it is impossible that they become anything 
but human monsters, costing millions to keep them in a state 
of subjection for the safety of the favored ones. 



ADDENDA. 5 

It was a heathen pagan Emperor that. said that a nation 
could not expect to survive long, that derived its main reve- 
nues from the vices of its people, yet we are still deriving our 
principal revenue from the most destructive vice of our people 
and our children are taught in schools tinctured with pagan 
folly, and denominated "murderous" by able critics. 

Surely we too may well begin to study at the fundamentals. 
And we may welUbe very patient with the apparently slow 
progress of neglected races until we develop enough of the 
"Science of Society" to know how to maintain our own stand- 
ing and correctly help those who have not yet had even our 
imperfect advantages. 

THE GREAT OBERLINS EXAMPLE. 

'What man has done, man may do again." 

— Ancient Proverb. 

All our farcical failure to elevate the Indians, and now the 
Philippines and other neglected people are in striking contrast 
to the success of the great Oberlin, who perhaps caused one of 
the greatest social reforms on the largest scale of any in re- 
corded history. He began his work by establishing an Agri- 
cultural school and taught the wild, rude, robber natives of 
the Pyranees an improved agriculture as the first step in a 
moral betterment. And so on from this fundamental begin- 
ning till he changed the whole people of the province, from 
the poorest, most wicked, and degraded, to the most refined, 
intelligent and thrifty of any in the nation. 

His beginning, history and great success, is one of the 
most convincing and inspiring proofs of our whole contention 
possible. 

"THE LAW OF HUMAN PROGRESS." 

"When all the elements of national life work together in 
harmony for progress, then material prosperity and moral ad- 
vance are rapid and sure, but when divisions and discord be- 
tween warring classes of citizens comes in to absorb mental 
effort, then national decadence and death sets in and when car- 
ried one step too far, then reform and recovery is impossible." 
— Henry George. 

'These startling words of the humane able student of all 
social law were penned nearly half a century since; when 



6 ADDENDA. 

Strife and divisions between classes had not attained to half 
the portentious evils of today. 

This philosophy of the able economist is but putting the 
essential teachings of the Carpenter of Nazareth into econo- 
mics phrase. He declared that "The meek (the altruistic) 
shall inherit the earth," and that "the strong shall bear the 
burdens of the weak," which is only another way of saying 
that all shall work together for common progress or common 
good and by that means they shall "inherit the earth." And 
all this is but the unchanging law of democratic economics, 
as potent and invariable as the law of gravitation. 

Those who for selfish ends foment class divisions and strife, 
are more surely and rapidly undermining the foundations of 
the Bfcpublic, than the maddest anarchists. 

When old Rome was climbing to a world supremacy, her 
peasantry all owned their own land and lived in their own 
homes, and their patriotism made them invincible, but when 
class divisions and unjust laws had taken their homes and 
lands and the drift was to the cities and to slavery, all patriotic 
ambition was destroyed and the nation was ready for the 
ruthless destroyer. 

So today the appeal "back to the land" is but the plea to 
save our Republic already nearing the danger line from the 
rush to the cities, and the consequent clash of classes and di- 
vision of interests. 

Then let us speed the plans to get the people back to the 
land and make it charming by all that art and science can 
teach of the most progressive agriculture that is always the 
most attractive of professions and full of the highest pleas- 
ures of earth. And why should not the "Science of Society" 
and all the essential laws of human development and the 
methods for accellerating the evolution to higher and yet 
higher degrees of democracy, be taught in all our schools, 
and all that can be learned of proper, equitable and wasteless 
distribution of created wealth, be as carefully taught as are the 
ideals of perfect production or selfish accumulation. 

AN IRRIGATION CITY FOR SURPLUS LABOR. 

"The common people are the class most to be considered 
in the structure of civilization." — Walter H. Page. 

How may the dangerous divisions and strife between war- 
ring classes be so hopefully treated as by an effort to build an 



ADDENDA. 



"Irrigation City" with its "Industrial Schools and Colleges," 
its gardens and farms, shops and factories, where all surplus 
labor can become more than self supporting, and let capital 
and labor shake hands over the project that will bring peace 
and unity and co-operation between the now clashing, war- 
ring interests so dangerous to our public welfare even as the 
grand old hero Oberlin brought peace, prosperity and a high 
social order to the ignorant robber bands of the Pyranees. 

From 93 to 97 our commissioner of labor declared there 
were from one to three million workers all the time out of their 
usual employment. The suffering and death, resulting, would 
be equal to a quite severe war. 

Had this vast labor power been marshalled for a campaign 
of construction, as suggested by the practical Secretary, of 
the Irrigation League, and as it could have been much easier 
than were the armies of destruction from '61 to '65, it would 
have built several cities like Chicago, in the irrigation land, 
with farms and appliances to have made the inhabitants vastly 
more than self supporting and would have added several BIL- 
LIONS to the taxable permanent wealth of the nation and 
would have created a demand for all manufactured goods that 
would have kept many of the idle shops and factories busy, 
and capital employed and would have created a home market 
for products, a thousand times more to be desired than any 
foreign market, that must be sought after often at cost of war. 
Shall we allow this monumental folly and wicked waste to 
be repeated, in the coming depression, or shall the Free Indus- 
trial School and the CONSTRUCTIVE ARMY be set. at 
work to show the world a new example, the most striking 
and helpful of all the CENTURIES? 

"Democracy means constant social growth." — W. H. Page. 

THE WORLD WIDE FOLLY. 

"Peace hath her victories." — Milton. 

From a profound student of social problems, who with a 
small party has made the circle of the globe, we get the fol- 
lowing : "Everywhere we went we were impressed with this 
thought, IF ONLY all the nations of the earth would give 
the same earnest study and energy to teaching their people 
how to live, how to develope their natural resources, and their 
own best talents, that they now give to war and the prepara- 



8 ADDENDA. 

tions for war, how soon the world would be encircled by a real 
Millennial epoch of peace and abundant prosperity." Soon 
might come that dream of poets and prophets, the federation 
of the whole world in a brotherhood of unity, where the emula- 
tions should be highest attainments in usefulness, not in the 
grim powers of destruction. WHY NOT BEGIN IT NOW? 

WHAT WASTED LABOR POWER COULD DO. 

"Great waste is both wicked and unscientific." — Parsons. 

Of all the illogical wastes of our "Insane Civilization" per- 
haps the worst and most collossal, and least realized is that 
of the waste of labor power when idle. 

A few years ago the great city of Chicago was burned to 
the ground, and something like two hundred million dollars 
worth of buildings destroyed, and in three or four years it was 
all replaced, and twice as much more created, by the surplus 
labor power of the country, while all other productive industry 
went on unchecked, indeed the rather stimulated and increased 
by the active demand for products from the well paid labor, 
whose increased purchasing power was felt in every hamlet in 
the land. 

During the last two years, an army of approximately a 
hundred thousand men have built all the wonderful "Fair 
City" at St. Louis, which will soon be all torn down and be 
no increase to the taxable wealth of the nation. 

THE ARMY OF DISCHARGED LABOR. 

"A hungry desperate man is of all animals the most dan 
gerous." 

Recently we read in the daily press, that an army of nearly 
or quite seventy-five thousand men have been discharged by 
the railroads, and other large industries, aside from as many 
more last autumn, thus cutting them off from any chance to 
earn an honest living, and wasting a great share of their crea- 
tive labor power, and making them a danger to society from 
the very desperateness of their situation. 

The national treasury has already a fund of over twenty- 
seven millions in hand with which to build great irrigation 
works, thus opening a most profitable and permanent way of 
using the labor power now being wasted in idleness, and if 
it is used to build an irrigation city, of homes and farms, h 



ADDENDA. ^ 9 

will remain a permanent addition to the taxable wealth of the 
nation. While if this army of idle labor, now irritated and an- 
tagonistic, is left to suffer it may very probably destroy vastly 
more in red riot and revolution than it can replace in many 
more years of constructive labor. 

A few years ago our Government without a tithe of this 
sum on hand or "in sight" called together the largest army 
the world had ever seen, and taught them the art of destroy- 
ing men and property, and in a few years they destroyed one 
or two billions of the accumulated wealth of the country. If 
then our government, would at once begin to use this sum 
now in the Treasury, to employ this labor to create some 
permanent wealth, how much more sane and reasonable than 
to risk its waste and the danger it will be to the peace of th* 
country. 

Truly to build such an irrigation city, we would need many 
teachers to teach the people skilled gardening and intensive 
farming, so did the army need thousands of drill masters to 
teach the art of destroying property and men. We may wel! 
ask what is all our skill and science, our schools, colleges, 
churches, and universities for if not to produce a civilization, 
or social order that shall open the doors of natural opportu- 
nity, and teach people how to use the bounties of nature and 
their own powers of hand to create their own living, and thus 
at the same time create a "balance wheel" for the labor 
market, to use in a profitable manner the surplus labor not 
now needed in present production for the market? We call 
on our educators and captains of industry for an answer. 

Valuable as has been the lesson taught by the great Fair, 
of the world's progress in mechanic art, we are profoundl}? 
impressed with the conviction, that the world impression that 
could be made by organizing, educating, and employing the 
army of discharged labor, to build their own city of homes, 
and to create their own self supporting industries, would 
have been a thousand fold more important, and would have 
helped forward the evolution of a higher democratic ideal 
more than all the great Fairs yet held. In so far as man him- 
self is above and superior to the machines he makes, even so 
far is the development of social progress, that shall eliminate 
the waste of men, above that of the development of progress 
in purely mechanical achievements. 



10 ADDENDA. 

One of the most important items in mechanic progress 
has been to prevent all waste in power or material, so the 
highest achievements in civilization shall be to save all the 
pitiful waste of men that has heretofore been the bane of all 
undemocratic civilizations, and we now have attained the time 
when this great ideal should have its due study and make 
its first exhibition to the waiting world. 

"While another man has no land, my title to mine is viti- 
ated." — Emerson. 

THE REMEDY FOR CHILD SLAVERY. 

"No nation can afford to neglect its children." — Horace 
Mann. 

The words "Child Slavery" have an intuitive horror to 
every sensitive mind, and we are sure justly so, but as all 
healthy growth is step by step, and not from bad to best at 
once, so we think the working of poor children in our factories 
may yet be made a means of grace to the poor children of 
the mountains, by giving them training in garden and schools 
which they could not have but for the chance to earn some 
of its. cost. 

If the children were to be divided into shifts, to work a 
few hours, and then study or work in the gardens and shops, 
and thus do what they can without abuse of their growing 
powers, it would mitigate the crying evil, and gradually open 
the way to the time when no child shall be allowed to labor 
for wages till of mature age, as it should be. 

And in accord with "the growing spirit of the age, the 
adults should also be divided into shifts and not allowed to 
work in the air of any factory or shop over eight hours at a 
time. And then be trained in gardening, mechanics and those 
arts that will make them self reliant, self respecting, self sup- 
porting people, who alone are fitted to be the ruling citizens 
of a Republic. The fact is already well established that in- 
telligent labor is always of more value even in tending the 
almost automatic machinery of modern production than un- 
trained. 

In some such way as this only can any state escape exe- 
cration for allowing its children to be destroyed by thousands, 
to make profits for soulless corporations. If the poor children 
of the mountains can earn a chance for gaining a wider out- 



ADDENDA. 11 

look, and a training for an independant and intelligent life, 
by giving a portion of their time, even to the slavish labor and 
w^ages of the factory system, it may be one step in advance, 
but to give their whole time as now to the soul and body 
destroying factory slavery is a paganism, not excelled in at- 
rocity, by any story of all the past slaveries in the worlds 
cruel history. 

If all the states of our country would heed the words ol 
that able son of the south who says "the children of a state 
are its most valuable of undeveloped resources and let no 
greed of gain chain them to a destructive slavery." 

NERVOUS AMERICANS. 
"AMBRICANITIS." 

"The strength of a chain is measured by its weakest link." 

"A people who have become physically degenerate, will 
also be morally and mentally decadent." 

No student of social progress or decline, can learn of thi 
appalling increase in nervous diseases, and the constantly in 
creasing number of nervous wrecks, among the American 
people, with all the attendant suffering, and loss of mental 
power, without the most pessimistic forebodings for the fu- 
ture. And it is practically certain that a great share of it comes 
from our unnatural, unscientific school system, with its high 
pressure and long continued nerve strain, and almost total 
neglect of physical exercise and muscle development; while 
with a proper school system the effect would be the other 
way, to correct any tendency from other causes towards 
nerve weakness, and to produce robust bodies, with ample 
strength of nerve and mental powers for the most strenuous 
of life's activities. 

Instead of weakening strong children, a proper educational 
system should strengthen weak children. The weak and 
nervous child should come from its sehool period with 
its nerve strength built up instead of enervated, and in so 
many cases entirely destroyed. 

Of this there is ample proof, and our President Roosevelt 
is one striking example, who a puny boy, was so developed in 
his school age as to become an athlete, with nerv*e vigor of 
great endurance. The same is being illustrated in the won- 
derful school at Haubinda, Germany, where weakling anemic 
boys are in one year so strengthened as to be able to make 



12 ADDENDA. 

long trips across country, sleeping out of doors in rigorous 
autumn weather with no detriment, and making as good or 
better progress in academic studies as pupils in other schools 
who do no work with their hands. 

The day for the suggestion that any class of pupils cannot 
stand the strain of a course of study, in school, college, or 
university, has gone by, and the day is dawning when the 
weak and nervous young lady, or boy, will be sent to college 
or university for the express purpose of building up a robust 
body, and a vigorous enduring nerve power, while attaining 
to the very broadest and most complete educational course 
possible to gain from an institution of learning. 

"Any study that is not recreative to a growing child, is 
always injurious." — Dr. Dewey. 

"I would rather have Illiterates for citizens than Nerve- 
Wrecks." — Nelson. 

AN INSANE CIVILIZATION. 

"The faults and vices of our philosophy and literature, are 

attributable to the enervated habits of our literary classes." — 
Em_erson. 

Recently in an address to a student body, a clergyman of 
international repute, a man much in demand for commence- 
ment orations and Chautauqua platforms, declared it as his 
belief that a course of mental training alone, produced such 
an abnormal development, such a one sided mental equip- 
ment as to merit the name of an insanity, and in his opinion 
so far has this been carried in England and America, that it 
is correct to speak of our social order as an insane system, 
with abnormal standards. Surely a most startling proposition 
to come in all candor from such a source. But who shall deny 
the charge? It is apparently the only reasonable explanation 
for all the crudities and absurdities of our civilization, and it is 
too serious and startling to be pushed aside lightly by our 
educators, whose patriotism and science as well is thus called 
in question. 

MRS. GENERAL LEW WALLACES INDICTMENT. 

"The mute appeal of neglected children is to you the voice 
of God."— W. A. Page. 

The above and the severe indictment of Mrs. Lew Wal- 



ADDENDA. 13 

lace's noted article* is a most severe reflection on our Asso- 
ciated Educators, and we must repeat and reaffirm her charge. 
We have seen its truth in all parts of our country, and have 
heard it approved by many most thoughtful people. We 
find many teachers who agree to the essential truth of ail her 
most startling charges, and adniit that no adequate attempt 
has yet been made to strengthen the weaker children, or 
guard against injury to nervous ones. And in the name oi 
our countrys' future, in the name of hundreds of children 
killed, and the thousands injured, and in the name of the 
thousands of sufferers, we call upon and beg of our National 
Educational Association, that this appalling condition be given 
their most profound and serious consideration. The thought 
of the world is too much aroused, the importance of the case 
is too great to be pushed aside with neglect any longer. 

The success of the school at Haubinda, and the recognized 
li Described in current 'Tnternational Magazine" by Dr. 
August Forel, of the University of Zurich, Switzerland.! 
need of a change has caused other schools to be established in 
several parts of Europe, and makes it seem that they will 
likely soon surpass us in this as they have in the number of 
their other industrial schools. Surely America, that first 
established the ideal of the common school, and the giving 
to every child a fundamental education cannot afiford to let 
the old countries so far surpass her in these types of schools 
best adapted for the progress towards a higher Democracyj 

"To talk about education in a democratic country, as less 
than the free education for EVERY CHILD is a mockery." — 
W. H. Page. 

THE , EDUCATORS' RESPONSIBILITY. 

"To whom much is given, from them much will be required." 
—Bible. 

Is it less than a severe reflection on our National Educa- 
tional Ass'n that such a sweeping and derogatory charge as 
was that of Mrs. Lew Wallace's arraignment, confirmed as 
it was by the wide correspondence of Editor Bok, and by 
the observations of so many people, who have reiterated the 
charge in all portions of the country, should go on unnoticed 
and unanswered for all these years? 

*Iu "Ladies Home Journal." 



14 ADDENDA. 

If it is or was approximately or remotely correct, to 
charge that our school system is a menace to the health 
and nerves of the nation's children, a cause of death to many 
and an irreparable injury to more, and a danger to all, then 
is it a national disgrace and, danger, for the children of today 
are the people of the nation's defense of tomorrow. And a 
charge of an injury, where there should be great bodily as 
well as mental benefit, is of so startling importance, as im- 
peratively to demand immediate attention from all who have 
the educational interests of the nation in their hands. They, 
of all others, should take immediate measures to repel the 
serious charge of a murderous system, or take the most heroic 
steps to change the methods so as to avoid all possibility of 
doing so serious a wrong to their sacred trust. 

This nations' life has cost too much, and the hopes of the 
world are too intensely centered in our welfare, to allow any 
possible avoidable injury to come to the rising generation 
of those who must assume the tremendous responsibility of 
carrying forward the ideals of a " Triumphant Democracy." 

NORMAL SCHOOL PREPARATION OF TEACHERS. 

"The proper question at examination should not be, what 
have you learned from text books, but what have you be- 
come?" For what activities are you prepared? 

The able Superintendent of the Washburn School for Boys 
of Minneapolis, suggested that the first and most important, 
and possibly the most difficult step in bringing in the new 
ideal of hand training in schools, would be to get the ideal 
accepted and adopted in the Normal schools, where the 
teachers are trained for actual work. For here he thought 
would be a strong hold of conservatism and conventionality, 
equal to the average college or university. 

But we have been much gratified to hear from the head of 
one normal in the east, who had foreseen the importance and 
need of this kind of teaching, and has inaugurated working 
classes, to train teachers in floriculture, gardening and other 
handicraft lines, and proposes to enlarge along this line as 
fast as he can get support to do so. 

In one of the most prominent of southern Normals, we 
also find still more complete equipment for teaching a variety 
of handicrafts, and what is best of all the efficient lady head 



ADDENDA. 



of this department is a thorough enthusiast over the already, 
visible benefits of the system — not experiment. We dare 
opine, that the Normal that does not see the shadow of com- 
ing events, and prepare to drill teachers in all possible lines 
of hand culture and particularly some work that touches til- 
lage of the soil, and the growing of useful or beautiful things, 
will soon be away behind the times; and their teachers not in 
demand for the best schools. 

TEACHERS PREMATURELY BREAK DOWN. 

"The prosperity o£ the state depends on ALL the people 
being properly educated." — Gov. Heyward. 

It is a matter of most common remark that the teachers 
vocation is one of severe nerve strain, and that many break- 
down under it at an early age, and thus lose their best years 
of usefulness. This alone is enough to condemn the system, 
for of all citizens of the state, the teachers should be the most 
valued, and what ever cuts their life or activity short is a 
severe loss to the social organism. The later years of a 
teachers life should be of most usefulness and would be if 
conserved by a proper change from mental to physical labor, 
in their daily work, as it would be in an industrial system of 
school life. 

Will our N. E. A. then squarely meet the issue and either 
show to the world the fallacy of all these charges, or set 
about seeking a sufficient remedy to satisfy the people who 
have put such a priceless charge in their hands. 

THE PEOPLE MUST MAKE THE CHANGE. 

"All great reforms must come up from the common peo- 
ple." — Ancient Egyptian Proverb. 

From a venerable and venerated friend whose thought is 
always candid and able, comes the suggestion that the re- 
forms we ask must perforce come from the demand of the 
people themselves, that what is demanded by the need of the 
times and the aroused spirit of the world, is so far away from 
the conventional established ideal, it cannot be wrought out by 
' the present professional educators, they have not the power 
to stem the tide of established custom, but it must be brought 
about by the united demand of the people and the progressive 
teachers who have already seen the wrong of the present and 



16 ADDENDA. 

the hope of the better system, whose eyes are open to the 
coming light, and who see the fundamental need of the time. 
"The teachers of the old system fool themselves, and misr 
lead their pupils into the belief that a literary course alone can 
make SCHOLARS."— W. H. Page. 

INITIATING SELF-SUPPORTING SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES. 

"Where there is a will, there is a way." — Proverb. 

"Life without work is guilt, and work without ART is 
brutality." — Ruskin. 

So often comes the querie, "What are the first steps to be 
taken in oganizing a Self-Supporting school or college?'' But 
from the nature of the case, very definite instructions can- 
not be given for all the varying conditions, localities and per- 
sonalities of those essaying the effort. 

To some teachers and in some places, the first steps along 
the industrial line will be in gardening and intensive farrning, 
adding the shops and tools for making the needed things of 
the school as time and condition may dictate. The ideal way 
would be for the state or national government to furnish the 
equipment complete before beginning, and no doubt when the 
ideal becomes fixed in the minds of the people, this will be 
done. To some teachers in some places, the first steps will 
naturally be in some type of "Arts and Crafts" adding the 
p-ardening and other features later, as has been done by Elbert 
Hubbard at East Aurora. 

To our view one of the very fundamentals would be to 
teach some type of work on the -land, some form of labor on 
the face of Mother Earth, some touch of the ideal of that 
wonderful allegory in Genesis, where perfect man is given a 
"garden to trim and dress" as the best condition for highest 
moral and mental growth, and towards which all turn as the 
best remedy for our social ills. To produce its own food is 
one of the most homelike concepts of such a school. 

A most valuable and practical suggestion comes from Dr. 
Triggs of the Chicago University, that for a private school 
that perforce must be self-supporting, the first steps should 
be to establish the industrial and economic portion on a pay- 
ing basis before commencing any distinctly school work. Thir. 
at least would make it a safe step, but we believe some actual 
study can be begun at the first, and not interfere with thQ 



ADDENDA. 7 

economic safety or progress at all, by working only eight 
hours per day, and having evening classes for study, and in 
this way good progress can be made in the true education that 
shall distinguish this type of school from that whose only 
ideal is to memorize so much of text books any way whether 
of any use or not. 

If the industrial work is led as it should be in all cases 
by one who is in the spirit of the school and a competent en- 
thusiastic teacher, a vast and valuable amount of real mental 
equipment will be gathered from the oral instruction given 
in the daily conversation of the teacher, and a love developed 
for knowing things and all about the sciences related to daily 
life, which is one of the very best foundations for all educa- 
tion. Through this means many of the laws of nature and 
mechanics, and the allied sciences can be imparted, making it 
one of the most profitable portions of a true education, with- 
out any use of text books at all. And we know from experi- 
ence that there are a vast number of young people all the way 
from 15 to 50 years of age that would spring at the chance to 
win such an education, and go through such a course, if the 
hope was opened before them, and who would be willing to 
work full time the first two years, at any reasonable labor, to 
get a start that should give them the hope of a completed 
course. 

After the first one or two years of full time work, the next 
3^ears could be divided according to circumstances, say work- 
ing each day three or four hours, for four or five days per 
week, and full time the other one or two days, as found neces- 
sary to make the cost of all things fully covered by the amount 
of labor done, having all the time evening classes if desirable, 
and oral conversational instruction as can be so well given 
when teachers and pupils work together. 

It can all be done as soon as there is any enthusiasm for it. 

From an able and experienced educator comes the sugges- 
tion that in nearly every village and country school district 
the work of industrial training can be begun without any new 
expense or trouble, that there are experts, in varied lines of 
handicraft who would volunteer to teach a few hours per week 
or would do some teaching and take payment in the work of 
the pupils after a few lessons had made them expert enough 
to be a help worth some consideration. 

The teachers of woodwork and blacksmithing in an Agri- 



18 ADDENDA. 

cultural College made the statement that the boys who have 
a natural taste for those trades can gain enough skill in two or 
three weeks to be able to earn wages as helpers, and rapidly 
come to be worth more than half as much as journeymen 
tradesmen. 

All this line of educational work will grow of its own 
charm, easier and faster than the memory cramming of text 
book rules and data. 

PRIMARY INDUSTRIAL LESSONS IN EVERY SCHOOL DISTRICT. 

From a most practical and able educator, comes this sug- 
gestion — which is really but a concrete expression of what is 
already begun in hundreds of schools where the vision of a 
better system has already been revealed to teachers of an open 
mind. 

"Let but the firm determination come to parents and 
school authorities alike that this killing high pressure nerve 
strain shall cease, and at once; this memory cramming from 
text books be modified by more general and practical instruc- 
tion, and the school day be cut squarely in two; and it be 
decreed that hereafter only half of the days time shall be 
given to text book study ; and at once in a hundred different 
ways will the way open to the better method of handicraft 
training, and the study of mechanical principles, and its prac- 
tice in all the ways at hand. 

Let gardening and floriculture be begun on vacant lots, or 
on land rented or donated, and taught by the best experts 
within reach.. Let wood-working be attempted in varying 
ways, from whittling from drawings of canes, spoons, profiles 
of differing types of facial form, and let the carpenters teach 
the elements of their work, and get help to partly or wholly 
repay time spent in lessons. The same with other trades and 
arts. The arts of basket weaving and rug braiding, from rags, 
corn husks, tough grasses and pine needles. Study out some 
simple forms of Sloyd with its progressive steps from a simple 
stick whittled to a square or round, to the perfect hexegon 
and octagon, and so up to the making of a fancy tabarett, 
which will be accomplished much sooner than would be ex- 
pected." 

The Jack Knife can be made an implement of art culture, 
equal to the pencil or brush if only directed into making 



ADDENDA. 19 

things of symmetry, instead of the usual inane whittling 
merely to make shavings. The use of shears and scissors iii 
cutting silhouettes, birds, profiles, dresses and aprons for dolls, 
etc. And all this will grow in interest and value as the work 
goes forward and skill and interest deepens, and all has its 
great value in mental equipment, and it will sharpen the 
ability to memorize all needful text book lessons and vastly 
help to keep discipline and interest in a healthful growth. 

MORE FOR SCHOOLS AND LESS FOR WAR. 

"The growth of the war spirit, is a sure sign of moral 
decadence." 

The present Japanese war has proven beyond question 
that the art of destruction, has made even greater progress 
than the art of invulnerability in making battleships, in 
vincible as they have seemed. 

And we now know that the great steel armoured ships, 
costing so many millions, can be destroyed like an egg shell, 
in a moment of time by the fearful engines of destruction 
modern science has enabled us to perfect. And there is every 
reason to believe this will continue to be more and more so, 
and that in the near future it will be impossible to make a 
ship, if it is not already so, that will not be at the mercy ot 
an alert and active foe, and liable to be shattered and sunk in 
a moment at any time. 

In view then of all this and in view of the worse and more 
destructive, demoralizing effect of cultivating the war spirit 
among our people — always a degrading influence — how un- 
speakably foolish and wicked to squander millions of wealth on 
battle ships, when so many of our poor people are held in the 
unspeakable thralldom of illiteracy, the worst slavery the 
mind can conceive. 

Does any sane mind for one moment believe there could be 
a particle of danger, if this Republic should at once announce 
to the world, that we WILL HAVE NO MORE WAR— that 
from now on we will disarm, and scatter our silly army and 
navy, and hereafter depend on the worlds court of arbitra- 
tion to settle all our controversies, if so be we ever have any 
to settle. And instead of all this worse than wasted effort, 
announce to the world that we will at once begin to enlarge 
our schools and colleges, so that EVERY CHILD and adult 



20 ADDENDA. 

too who wishes it, shall not only be taught to read and write, 
but also shall have a very complete all around training, of 
hands and head and heart, in all that will make' them the 
highest type of citizens the world has ever seen, in both in- 
telligence and efficiency as wealth producers, and people cul- 
tured in all high ideals of esthetic living. 

And if we should announce to the world that instead of a 
portion of our people being taught the arts of destruction, 
and of killing each other, they shall all be taught more fully 
than ever before heard of in the annals of the worlds history, 
in the sciences of Agriculture, and Mechanic arts, also that 
all our children during the formative period of their whole 
youth shall be kept under the moulding influence of teachers, 
with the end and aim always in view of making each and 
every one of them the highest type of useful citizens possible 
to develop from their given talents. 

Does any sane mind doubt that such a step would at once 
set a new pace for the world's progress, and be the actual 
means for bringing in that era, so dimly foreseen by the an- 
cient Seers, when wars shall BE NO MORE. 

A little more than a century ago we set the world an ex- 
ample of forming a government with a democratic constitu- 
tion, and that first radical step has been followed more or less 
closely by some where near a hundred countries who now 
have a constitutional government. 

May we not then hope that every patriot heart will join 
our cry, and ask that we shall have a still more inclusive de- 
mand than our Motto and let it be "MORE FOR SCHOOLS 
AND NAUGHT FOR WAR." 



ADDENDA. 21 

The American League For Industrial Education, 

The American League for Industrial Education was or- 
ganized in Chicago on June 20, 1904. And the objects of 
the organization are set forth as follows in their preamble : 
1st. To conduct an educational campaign for an Industrial, 
public school system which shall include both agricultural 
and manual training in all public schools, so that children 
shall be taught to farm as they are now taught in Denmark 
and France in the public schools. 

2d. To promote the establishment of school gardens in 
connection with all public schools and of public Manual Train- 
ing schools farms in every county in the United States, and 
of enough such school farms in the vicinity of all cities to 
give to every boy an opportunity to learn how to till the 
soil for a livelihodd, and get his living from the land by his 
own labor. 

3d. To enlist the co-operation of Agricultural, Civic, Com- 
mercial, Educational, Industrial, Labor, Manufacturing and 
other cyganizations as well as philanthropic support and leg- 
islative action in furthering the objects of the League. 

4th. To maintain a Press and Literary bureau for the pro- 
motion of the objects of the League, and the collection and 
dissemination of information concerning Industrial Educa- 
tion, including both farm and manual training and to bring 
before the people of the country, through lectures, and public 
addresses, and by holding local and national conventions, the 
advantages, methods and motives of industrial education and 
the national importance of a public system of industrial 
schools. 

Among those who have already consented to act as officers 
of the League are prominent business men, well known jurists 
and eminent educators. One of the leading bankers of Chi- 
cago has consented to act as treasurer. 

Eventually it is expected that every State in the Union 
will be represented on the official board. . 

The objects and purposes of the League have already been 
endorsed by two large organizations of representative busi- 
ness men by appropriate resolutions. 

A very large membership is confidently expected. 



ADDENTBA. 

OFFICERS OF THE 



American League for Industrial Education 

who have already expressed their willingness to serve 



1714 RAILWAY EXCHANGE BUILDING 

7 JACKSON BOULEVARD 

CHICAGO 



N. O. NELSON, 

Ch'm Board Trustees 



E. D. HURLBERT, Treas., GEO. H. MAXWELL 

Vice-Pres. Merchants Executive Chairman 

Loan & Trust Co. 



JEROME H. RAYMOND S. H. COMINGS 

Gen'l Secretary Corresponding Secretary 



O. L. TRIGGS, 

Field Secretary 



BOARD OF TRUSTEES 



JANE ADDAMS, Chicago 
Head Resident Hull House 
Social Settlement 

C, O. BORING, Chicago 

Member Board of Directors 
The Forward Movement 

C. B. BOOTHE, New York 

Chairman of the Board 

The National Irrigation Association 

E. B. BUTLER, Chicago' 

President Board of Trustees 
Illinois Manual Training School 
Farm 

JOHN W. COOK. DkKalb, III. 

President Northern Illinois State 
Normal School 

JOHN PARSON, Chicago 

Farsou, Leach & Co., Bankers 
140 Dearborn Street 

MILTON GEORGE, Chicago 

Founder Illinois Manual Training 
School Farm 

FRANK H. HALL, AirROKA, III. 
Superintendent of Institutes 
Illinois Farmers Institute 

WILLET M. HAYES, 

St. Anthony's Park, Minn. 
Profes'-or of Agriculture 
University of Minnesota 

H. D. HEMENWAY, 

Hartford, Conn. 
Director Hartford School 
of Horticulture 



WILLIAM O. WATERS. Chicago 
Rector Grace Episcopal Church 

T. D. HURLEY, Chicago* 
Pi'esident Visitation and 
Aid Society 

THOMAS KANE. Chicago 
President Winona Assembly 
Winona, Indiana 

O. J. KERN, RoCKFORD, III. 
Superintendeut of Schools 
Winnebago County, Illinois 

J. H. KRAUSKOPF, Philadelphia 
President National Farm School 
Do^'lestown, Pa. 

GEORGE McA. MILLER, 

Glen Ellyn, III. 
President Ruskin University 

HERBERT MYRICK, 

SPt*iNGFiELD, Mass. 
Editor American Agriculturist 
and Orange Judd Farmer 

N. O. NELSON, St. Loui.s, Mo. 
President N. O. Nelson Mfg. Co, 
President I^eClaire College 

JOHN H. PATTERSON, 

Dayton, Ohio 
President National Cash 
Register Company 

EVERETT SISSON,. Chicago 
Publisher "The Interior" 
Director Winona Assembly 

R. S. TUTHILL, Chicago 
President Board of Trustees 
St. Charles Home for Boys 



ADDNEDA 2S 

"I like your ideas and fully agree with your plans." 

Thos. C. Atkeson, 

Professor Agriculture, 
W. Va. Unsty. Eductl. Cora., Natl Grange. 

No o-rowing child should ever be allowed to study at mem- 
orizing more than two hours at any one time, nor for more than 
two such terms in any one day. It is too severe a derangement 
of digestion, and too great a nerve strain. — Dr. Dkwey. 

"Education is something more than training youth — it is 
building a new social order." — Dole. 

"A nation that fails to make the best out of every individ- 
ual citizen, to the fullest measure of his capacity, must still be 
accounted barbarous." — Henderson. 

"No work that cannot be done with pleasure should be 
done at all." "Genuine art is always the expression of pleas- 
ure in labor." — Wm. Morris. 

"I agree to the fullest extent with your grand book, and in 
all your plans as therein expressed." 

(Rev.) J. Herman Randall. 

"Whoever brings universal industrial education to pass 
will be entitled to the laurel." — Dr. S. G. Smith. 

"The college may draw too heavily on the intellectual re- 
sources of the pupil. ... As a result the graduate may 
come forth bearing a mind disciplined to think, but lacking the 
power of body or will to use it." — Prest. Thwing, Western 
Reserve University. 



■2i ADDENDA. 

ENDORSEMENTS. 

"You are not too radical, I agree with all you have written, 
and will help along the move all I can." It is the next great 
step in our civilization." — Dr. W. H. Thomas, and Mrs, Van- 
dialia Varnum Thomas. 

"I agree with all your arguments and propositions exactly. 
Your book should be read by five millions of the best people, 
and I will help along your League all I can." — N. O. Nelson. 

"The book has held me like a romance, it is full of virility, 
and complete argument. I was in favor of Industrial educa- 
tion before, but did not know the strongest arguments for 
it." — Mrs. Clara Parish Wright. 

"You have concentrated a wealth of arguments, and facts 
most conclusive." — L. A. Damon, Teachers College, Columbia 
University. 

"I am thoroughly in accord with all your contentions, the 
best schools of the future will be on the plan of alternate work 
and study." — Dr. O. L. Triggs, Chicago University. 

"Your propositions are perfectly feasible, and should be 
put into action. If pupils had an organized system for pro- 
ducing all their own needs, they could do so at no detriment, 
but to an actual advantange to their academic studies." — 
(Prof.) A. J. Cook, Pomona College. 

"Your book is very interesting and suggestive, and should 
have a wide reading." — Mrs. Virginia C. Meredeth, Minnesota 
Agricultural College. 

"It is a great book."^Andrew M. McConnell, Atlanta Al- 
kahest Lyceum Bureau. 

"It is just what I have been looking for." — Geo. H. Max- 
well, editor "Talisman." 

"Your book looks small, but it is weighty, we have spoiled 
enough Indians and colored people by false system of educa- 
tion ; it is a pity to have it go farther, and spoil the Filipinos : 
success to you in your great work." — (Rev.) Wm. C. Damon. 

"Too much cannot be said in praise of this unassuming 
little book, which marks an epoch in educational literature," — 
Waverly Magazine. 



